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% 





















MEDITATIONS 
ON THE 

CROSS 


By 

TOYOHIKO KAGAWA 

If 


Translated by 

Helen F. Topping and Marion R. Draper 7 



Willett, Clark & Company 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 


1935 



Copyright 1935 by 
WILLETT, CLARK & COMPANY 


Manufactured in the U. S. A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-LaPorte, Ind. 

Second Printing 



'JUN 261936 




TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD 


A 

V 

£ 

Kagawa has published more than a hundred books in his 
own country. In other countries the demand for them is 
such that missionaries in Japan are banding themselves 
together to do the translation as rapidly as possible. Rev. 
P. G. Price, the outstanding leader in social work among 
them, has translated the last chapter of this book, on “ The 
Cross and the Social Movement Miss Marion Draper, 
translator of a number of Kagawa’s books and a member of 
his staff, the chapters from the seventh to the seventeenth; 
the writer the first six. Two theological seminaries offered 
their services to help in the process of final revision of the 
English text: Andover Newton at Newton Center, Mass., 
and the one at which the work is being completed. Espe¬ 
cial thanks are due the hospitable generosity of Dr. C. C. 
Cunningham, acting president of the latter, and to Dr. 
A. C. Tandy, a student of Dr. Shailer Mathews, and its 
professor of homiletics. With deep spiritual insight and 
balanced theological judgment, the latter has scrutinized 
the text in an effort to fit it to American thinking, mean¬ 
while preserving a fine loyalty to the author. Mrs. 
Dameron, Mr. Rose, and a number of other students of 
the Kansas City Baptist Theological Seminary have con¬ 
tributed the secretarial help. 

These pages present a sort of threefold Kagawa: (i) as 
evangelist preaching to Japanese, the majority not Chris¬ 
tians, so that there are Japanese words, illustrations, Bib¬ 
lical references, and a certain amount of repetition of 
material and thought; (2) as social prophet, insisting on 
the service of religion to the cause of social solidarity; 


vi 


Foreword 


(3) as great Christian, meditating for himself on the 
greatest fact in human history. The first six chapters 
might be called “ The Cross in the Scriptures the last 
twelve, “ The Philosophy of the Cross.” The American 
reader who yields himself to the difficult task of intellec¬ 
tually and mystically laying hold on Kagawa’s concepts in 
the first part will find his faith rewarded; both as he reads 
the later pages in the relative ease with which he under¬ 
stands them, and in finding his mind implemented for 
social reconstruction after closing the book. 

It has been suggested that chapters five and six on Paul 
might be read before chapter four, which may be to some 
the most difficult, dealing as it does with the Fourth Gos¬ 
pel. After seeing through Kagawa’s eyes the bourgeois 
nationalist intellectual that Saul was, converted into the 
best interpreter of the proletarian Jesus, one is prepared 
to find other bourgeois following him in repentance and 
conversion, as they do in the Fourth Gospel. To Kagawa 
this much debated document is largely a compilation of 
the confessions of officials who crucified Jesus and after¬ 
ward repented of it. 

This makes it of importance as class literature for op¬ 
pressed proletarians. Kagawa does not care who coordi¬ 
nated the fragmentary recollections of Nicodemus, of 
Joseph of Arimathea and of the others who made their 
confessions as they joined the Christian community, or 
at the annual memorial services on the anniversaries of the 
crucifixion. But having himself suffered repeatedly the 
agonies of unjust arrest, trial and condemnation, he rec¬ 
ognizes the typical character and also the psychological 
soundness of the scripture records; and he knows that 
nothing, to persecuted proletarians, can take the place of 
the consolations afforded by these confessions of their 
converted oppressors. It is Jesus as not merely a typical 


Foreword 


vii 


proletarian, but as a proletarian of the proletarians, the 
most oppressed of all, who is presented in the Fourth 
Gospel. In the period of reconstruction and consequent 
persecution that is upon us, we shall re-discover the Fourth 
Gospel, Kagawa says, as a spiritual foundation for present- 
day prophetism. 

Formerly religion was called opium in Russia and with 
some reason. Kagawa is freeing Christianity from the 
enslavement it has suffered to bourgeois materialism, 
partly by re-interpreting its own records, obscured under 
the minutiae of bourgeois theologians of the last two cen¬ 
turies, who spent their lives in their capitalist-supported 
libraries and therefore did not understand their Bibles. 
Kagawa says that in order to do so it is necessary to get 
down into the social movements of the poor in which the 
Bible grew, the movements for human emancipation. The 
reader who grasps his thought will be the one who sees in 
the following pages the emergence of the gospel for the 
working classes, for the cooperative movement, and for 
all those who give themselves to sacrificial service for eco¬ 
nomic and social reconstruction. To such the Cross is not 
a theological dogma but the only possible Way of Life. 

Helen F. Topping 

Kansas City Baptist Theological Seminary 
October n, 1935 


CONTENTS 


Translator’s Foreword v 

Introduction 3 

I. The Secret of the Cross 9 

II. The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 18 

hi. The Cross in the Mind of Christ 36 

iv. The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 45 

v. The Cross in the Thought of Paul 64 

vi. The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Para¬ 

bles 80 

vii. The Cross as Truth 94 

viii. The Cross and the Blood of Christ 103 

ix. The Cross and Prayer 109 

x. The Cross and the Fine Art of Death 118 

xi. Those Who Take Up the Cross 126 

xii. Divine Love Made Real Through the 

Cross 136 

xiii. Loving God in Society 15 i 

xiv. The Cross and Social Life 161 

xv. The Cross and Ethical Life 171 

xvi. The Cross and Religious Life 18 i 

xvn. The Cross and Daily Life 189 

The Cross and Social Movements 199 

ix 


XVIII. 






MEDITATIONS ON THE CROSS 





INTRODUCTION 


i 

O Son of Man, bearing the cross upon his exhausted and 
bruised shoulders, climbing the hill of Calvary, I myself 
have seen him! 

Weighted down by the burden, in the road he falls. 
Then Simon the father of Rufus, 

Hurrying up to the spectacle to gaze upon it 
Is pressed into service by the soldiers. 

He, the astonished countryman, grumbles not a little 
As he shoulders and carries forward the unwelcome 
burden. 

Thus desires our Lord Jesus of us, that we, too, 

Take our turn in bearing his cross. 

For Jesus, after three years of unresting struggle, 

After uncounted nights of prayer, and in particular, 
After the last night of agony in Passion week, 

Jesus, the sturdy manual laborer that he is, 

Has no more strength in him 
To carry the cross alone. 


n 

Steadily he guides himself along the road of his destiny 
That, having saved others, he may not save himself. 
For, in the name of religion, the ruling classes 
Are carrying on a system of exploitation. Thus for one 
Who lives in the love of the Heavenly Father 
There can be no avoidance of the direct conflict with 
them. 

He who would save the lost sheep may not shrink 

3 


Meditations on the Cross 

From being himself devoured by the wolfi Determined 
To walk the great highway of holy suffering, 

In order to live in the love of the Infinite, 

He willingly abandons himself to the cross. 

hi 

As in the flowering of a maiden there are stages 
Between babyhood and the Day of the Bride, 

So in the growth of the race there are historical epochs. 
The seed sown in the earth sends forth a sprout, 

Then a bud, then a blossom, and at last the fruit. 
Thus in the history of mankind there came a time of 
great fruition. 

Driven from the Garden of Eden, the sons of men, still 
dreaming, 

Stumbled half awake at early dawn; 

Then after a long interval came to full consciousness 
Of redeeming love and the grace of God, 

And through Christ bore their first fruits. 

He it is who is indeed the Son of God. 

rv 

0 winter weather of the human race! After your cold¬ 
ness 

Came the springtide of Love Omnipotent! 

The Omnipotent Love of the Universe — 

It is its fruitage that we see in Jesus. 

Christ is the first man to awake to full consciousness of 
the Universe, 

The first to realize his responsibility even for sinners. 
But as winter comes back again after the fruit-bearing 
of the flowers 

So, since the Flower of Love blossomed in the bosom of 
Jesus, 


Introduction 


5 

Humanity’s winter has come round again and again in 
wearying repetition, 

Nor since then has there yet appeared on earth 
The flower of Universal Love like that of Jesus 
Brought to blossom and fruition in a group, in a com¬ 
munity. 


v 

My heart is grieved within me at human degeneracy 
And at the weak, poor-spirited life of the human race! 
Compared with the lofty figure of Jesus 
I am disgusted with my poor self! 

In this mood Paul longed to have his old self 
Crucified on the cross with Jesus. 

Before asking it of others, I, too, would crucify myself, 
And living henceforward not for my own self, 

Would awaken to the Love of the Universe, 

As it continually dies for others. 

vi 

The sphere of Nature is a world of never-ending love. 
Without love and sacrifice it would be impossible 
To sustain this marvelous Temple of Life. 

This law of love is unchanging even in 

The realms of mammals, of birds, even of insects. 

But these worlds the scientists point to 
Are those of mere instinctive loving; through Christ 
We discover that which goes beyond instinct — 
Redemptive love for the first time attaining its freedom 
And awakening as a human being! 

VII 

This Redemptive-Love-World is the only region 
In which a holy society can be created; and yet 


6 


Meditations on the Cross 


Autocrats and social revolutionaries, capitalists and 
communists, 

All treat as nonsense this Cross-consciousness 
Which rises beyond instinct. Without it, 

Without awakening to this full Cross-consciousness, 
The social revolution is absolutely futile. He who hesi¬ 
tates to enter 

His chrysalis will never become a butterfly. 

Social creation is utterly impossible except by 
Traversing the Via Dolorosa of the Cross. 

In the history of the human race there is needed 
The creation of this Cross-consciousness, 

That is to say, the creation of 
The inner life of its very soul. 

VIII 

This is not a Way of petty superficial devices — it is a 
Way 

Marked by blood, and the pouring out of 
Life’s volcanic eruption! 

It is Life’s highest art, this most courageous loving, 
Reaching up to Heaven through the life-instincts; 

It is the adventure of ultimate Love; 

It is the consummate Art of the Universe. 

Without it, the history of the Universe is equal to simply 
zero. 


IX 

As in a single Word, Christ’s Love-Movement 
Is summed up in the Cross. The Cross is 
The whole of Christ, the whole of Love. 

God speaks to man through the Cross 

Of Love’s mysteries concealed in the Divine Bosom. 


Introduction 


7 


x 

Leave to the Greeks their theories of Divinity! 
Abandon to their musty libraries those scholars 
Who fail to love humanity, and prefer ivory pagodas! 
Those who have no love of humanity 
Have no way of knowing the Love of God; 

The knowledge of the Love of God comes only 
By way of the Bloody Cross; he who fears to bear it 
Cannot know the Love of Christ. Bathing in the blood 
Flowing from the side of Christ 
We must continue today’s struggle for love. 

XI 

Is your love-citadel completed, friends? 

Have you entered into your rightful inheritance 
Of death to self and service for others? 

Have you done your portion of road-breaking 
For the Way of the Cross — among the lepers, 

Among the tuberculous, among the barbarians of 
Formosa, 

Or along the icebound straits of the Northern Seas? 

XII 

Without the Cross there is no victory. 

Give way neither to weeping nor to cowardly violence; 
Before pointing a pistol at others, subdue your own 
spirit! 

Press forward, O Cross! Make world history over 
Into the history of the Cross! Without the Cross 
The real uplifting of humanity is impossible, 

No matter how the upper structure of society may vary. 
Press forward, O Cross, press forward! 

Fearing neither the abuse of men nor their threatenings, 


Meditations on the Cross 

Let us go forward! In the blood-drops dripping 
Along the sorrowful road of the Via Dolorosa 
Will be written the history of man’s regeneration. 
Tracing those blood-stained and staggering footprints 
Let me go forward! 

This day also must my blood flow, following 
In that blood-stained pathway. 

Toyohara Inn, Karafuto. (Southern Saghalien.) 

May 25, 1931. 


I 


THE SECRET OF THE CROSS 

Then he warned the disciples not to tell anyone that 
he was the Christ. Matthew 16:20. 


Today it is very easy to talk about the Christian religion. 
And we take it for granted that Jesus went about talking 
about his being the Christ. Jesus, however, never once 
said that he was the Christ! Even when the disciples said 
to him, “ You are the Christ,” he said to them, “ Don’t 
tell it! K eep it a secret! ” This is what I call the secret 
of Christ. 

Why did Jesus not let people say that he was the Christ? 
It was because he was not yet qualified to call himself the 
Messiah. Until he took the Cross he could not be the 
Christ, he thought. To us this fact is unexpected, strange, 
startling. Unless we study the Bible well we fail to under¬ 
stand this. 

When the Salvation Army leader, General Booth, came 
to Tokyo, a certain man went to the station to meet him 
wearing a banner on which were inscribed the words, 
“ Buddha — Christ.” He maintained that he himself was 
the Christ. But no one believed him. About that time I 
met that man frequently, and knew him to be a quiet and 
fairly docile person, although so deeply self-deluded. He 
thought it was his duty to advertise himself as the Christ. 

Quite recently another Japanese announced that since 
there were six moles on the back of Christ, and six moles 


9 


io Meditations on the Cross 

also on his own back, therefore he himself must be the 
Christ! 

There was nothing of this sort of self-display in Jesus. 
Jesus was extremely modest. When John the Baptist sent 
him a letter from prison by messengers asking, “ Are you 
the coming Messiah? ” Jesus could not answer, “ Yes.” 
If he had been like that Japanese he would certainly have 
answered, “ Yes — the proof is that I have six moles on 
my back! ” But Jesus said, merely, “ Go and report to 
John what you hear and see. The blind are regaining their 
sight and the lame can walk, the lepers are being cured and 
the deaf can hear, the dead are being raised and good news 
is being preached to the poor. And blessed is the man who 
finds nothing that repels him in me.” 

Jesus could not say more than this. He did not go 
around announcing that he was the Christ. In his in¬ 
herent nature lay his power to help the distressed. At this 
point lies the difference between the Christianity which 
does, and that which does not, advertise itself. 

THE CHRIST WHO DODGED THE REVOLUTION 

Up to the age of thirty, Jesus kept silence, and worked 
at the carpenter’s trade. Then he cast aside his saw and 
chisel and became a disciple of John the Baptist. After 
that for about a year he traveled around with John. In 
the spring of his thirty-first year, when John was cast into 
prison, the course of Christ’s life changed. From that 
time onward, for just about a year, he pursued his remark¬ 
able Galilean ministry. 

At first he was working alone, but later he sent out 
twelve disciples and did an extensive and vigorous piece 
of evangelism. 

# On the night of King Herod’s birthday, John the Bap¬ 
tist was beheaded. At that a revolt broke out. The mass 


II 


The Secret of the Cross 

of the people wanted to make Jesus king. (John 6:15.) 
This is written in John alone; not in Matthew or Mark. 
Therefore John’s Gospel is of great importance in telling 
the life-story of Christ. 

We moderns think of the feeding of the five thousand, 
and later of the four thousand, as mere miracles performed 
by Christ, but we ought to realize that behind those mira¬ 
cles lay the above-mentioned situation. When John was 
killed the people became infuriated and cried: “ Down 
with the tyrant Herod who killed the prophet! ” And 
the revolutionary party thought that if they lost that 
chance they would never have another such favorable op¬ 
portunity in which to strike. 

Most people see only the religious side of the scriptures, 
and do not grasp their underlying social factors. Being 
involved in the social movement as I am, I cannot but see 
the social side of the Bible. 

To become the leader of five thousand revolutionists 
seemed to Jesus a very foolish thing to do. So he set out 
on a journey from Capernaum to Tyre and Sidon and back 
again. Upon returning, several months later, he investi¬ 
gated the situation very quietly, thinking that by that time 
the revolutionary ferment must have died down. He 
found, however, that the revolutionists were still active. 
At that time King Areta of Moab was coming to invade 
Judea with fifty thousand in his army, because his daugh¬ 
ter had been divorced by Herod Antipas. Probably be¬ 
cause of that circumstance the number of revolutionists 
was smaller than before, but there were still four thousand 
who came together at Jesus’ return. 

When we read the Bible in the customary way and dis¬ 
cover these statements that Jesus first fed the five thou¬ 
sand, and later the four thousand, miraculously, we dis¬ 
miss them as merely “ two more miracles.” We need to 


12 Meditations on the Cross 

know that behind these statements is the situation de¬ 
scribed above. As to why the scriptural accounts are not 
more explicit, it should be sufficient to explain that at that 
time it would be dangerous for any author to refer to the 
abolition of the kingship or to the rights of the common 
people. He might fully expect to lose his head as well as 
to have his book suppressed by the government. 

Yet the people came together for three days with Christ, 
intending to hold a secret parley with him about a revolu¬ 
tion. If Jesus had acceded to their wishes they certainly 
would have followed him. Instead he said, “ Think of 
Moses! If you think of Moses, does not that make you 
realize that a revolution would be very foolish? ” He re¬ 
jected the advances of the five thousand and went on his 
journey, and later, on the second occasion, rejected the 
pleas of the four thousand and again went on his way. 

TALKING OF THE CROSS 

During this journey, thinking that the people must be 
calling him a coward, Jesus asked the disciples what the 
crowd was saying about him. They replied, “ Some say 
John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others, Jeremiah, 
or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “ But who 
do you say that I am?” In other words, he asked, 
“ Then what do you fellows think? ” and Peter answered 
promptly, “ You are the Christ! ” 

At that Jesus said, “ What an extraordinary thing you 
are saying, Peter! God made you say that. But you 
fellows must all keep it a secret.” And at once he told 
them that he was to be put on the Cross. But the disciples 
thought that he was to be King, and to reign over the 
world. And here was Jesus himself saying that he was to 
be put on a cross! 

Possessed with this idea that Jesus was to rule the world, 


The Secret of the Cross 13 

and to promote the members of the twelve to high positions 
like glittering stars in his firmament, Peter protested to 
Jesus: “ Rabbi! Don’t say such a depressing thing — 
that you are soon to be executed! ” And Jesus scolded 
Peter: “ Now you are thinking differently, like a man, not 
like God! Get away from me! Satan! ” 

To the very end the disciples failed to understand this. 

There are two kinds of Christianity: success-Chris- 
tianity and failure-Christianity. Jesus said, “ Unless I fail, 
my work will be useless.” It is, however, a fact that when 
anyone becomes a Christian there is the danger that he 
may become too successful! He does not drink nor 
smoke, he possesses the confidence of his fellows, so there 
is nothing left for him to do but to succeed. In contrast 
to that, Christ said a very gloomy thing; he said that he 
was intending to fail! 

Meanwhile the disciples were thinking merely of how 
they themselves were to be elevated to high positions as 
members of his cabinet. On their way back to Capernaum 
from the second journey to the north the disciples were 
thinking of nothing but such things and were ashamed to 
confess them, so Jesus taught them, “ You fellows must 
become babies! ” And when he was on the way to the 
evangelization of Perea, the mother of James and John 
brought her two sons and appealed to him to put her chil¬ 
dren one on his right and one on his left as chief cabinet 
ministers, when he should become the king. The other 
disciples were extremely angry when they heard of this, 
because, (as they probably said) “ James and John even 
took their mother to Christ to make this request for 
them! ” Up to the very eve of the crucifixion the disciples 
were indulging in quarrels for place and position. Luke 
22:24 pictures this last scene. 

Thus while moving about from place to place, from the 


14 


Meditations on the Cross 


time Jesus returned from his northern trip to his last hour 
on the Cross, the disciples failed to comprehend his secret. 
Why did they fail so? Because they thought he was to be¬ 
come an earthly king! They did not grasp the profound 
thing that he himself was contemplating, that he was to 
be put on the Cross according to the scriptures, as a sacri¬ 
fice for all men. His teachings and his deeds they under¬ 
stood, but they had no comprehension whatever of his in¬ 
ner consciousness. 

Modern theologians are mostly like that. 

THE CRISES OF CHRIST 

From the social point of view there were two crises in 
the life of Jesus. One was at the time of John’s imprison¬ 
ment and the other when John was executed. Though 
himself possessing a superior conception, Jesus took it 
very seriously when John said of him, “ Behold the Lamb 
of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” From 
that time forward Jesus assumed the attitude of kingship, 
that is, of a king who was to bear, as a sacrificial lamb, 
the sins of his people. Therefore from that time on 
Christ’s oppression by the governmental authorities in¬ 
creased. There were three causes for his arrest: first, 
outward condition, or the objective situation; second, 
governmental oppression; and, third, Christ’s own con¬ 
sciousness. 

Why did Jesus have to be crucified? According to the 
explanation of the court, it was on three charges: Treason; 
Blasphemy; Disturbing the peace (violation of the Peace 
Preservation Law). 

Jesus could not escape from any of these accusations. 
To the governmental authorities he was indeed a danger¬ 
ous person. But he did not himself intend to become a 
king. When Pilate asked, “ Are you a king? ” Jesus did 


The Secret of the Cross 15 

indeed answer a simple “ Yes,” but the meaning in which 
he used the word “ king ” was entirely different from that 
of the politically ambitious disciples. 

Why was it that when asked this question by Pilate, 
he answered in the affirmative? Well, the situation was 
something like this. Pilate had inquired, with a sort of 
impartial detachment, “ Is it true, as the chief priests say, 
that you are the king of the Jews? ” Jesus answered, be¬ 
coming bolder as he faced the court, “ My kingdom is not 
a kingdom of this world. Governor, please don’t mis¬ 
understand me! If I were talking of an earthly kingdom, 
my own countrymen would not approve.” At that Pilate 
replied: “ For the life of me I can’t understand you. Are 
you a king or are you not a king? ” 

So, when he reiterated his question, Jesus answered, 
“ Yes.” 

This is a short but very significant passage. The king- 
ship Jesus was talking about was the kingship of the king¬ 
dom of truth, and he was saying that he was the king of 
that kingdom. 

“ Then what is this ‘truth ’ you are talking about? ” 

Pilate has grasped that this kingship Jesus was referring 
to was an abstraction; that he was a king in an abstract 
sense. So he reported, “ This Jew is a thought-criminal, 
but there is nothing to touch his thought-crime in Roman 
law.” 

Therein lies the great reason why Jesus had to be tried. 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF REDEMPTION 

But what was the inner consciousness of Christ? With¬ 
out an understanding of the meaning of the lamb in Jew¬ 
ish ceremonial one does not grasp the consciousness of 
Jesus. Ceremonials were many in Palestine, and one of 
the most characteristic of them was the Purification Festi- 


16 Meditations on the Cross 

val on July tenth, when they made cleansing for the sins 
of the entire preceding year. Moreover, such purifica¬ 
tion from sin is not understood except by persons who 
understand what sin itself is. 

If he had really wanted to be a king, Christ could have 
been one. Since as many as five thousand followed him, 
had he once lifted his banner, he might have led a suc¬ 
cessful revolt. But instead of the wish to lead a revolu¬ 
tion, there was in the consciousness of Christ the will to 
make up for the deficiences of others to save them — 
the solidarity-responsibility consciousness.* 

We can in a measure understand this from our own 
feelings today. Though I myself do not have the memory 
of having told a lie, or of having done anything wrong, 
and though I think myself innocent, yet when anyone else 
commits robbery — especially where such a responsible 
personage as a cabinet minister commits a crime and is 
thrown into prison — I feel a relationship to that crime, 
and that I must ask forgiveness of God for it. The Jesus 
who thought like that was truly the King of Truth. 

The kingship of Truth becomes God-consciousness. 
One bears the faults of others on his own shoulders and 
asks forgiveness of God for them, as if they were his own. 
Jesus thought that unless he did that he would not qualify 
as a king. 

Jesus was not merely an ordinary king. He was a 
king who, being a man, had God-consciousness, and be- 

* “ Solidarity-responsibility consciousness ” The Japanese are strongly 
imbued with this feeling of social solidarity. It appears in a negative 
form in the Old Testament. The Hebrews thought of the family, the 
nation, rather than of the individual. Achan’s sin caused the defeat of 
the whole army, and the death of his entire family. In the New Testa¬ 
ment, Paul’s “ body ” chapters, i Cor. 12, Rom. 12, and Eph. 4, illustrate 
the growing conception of positive social solidarity in the Christian com¬ 
munity. 


The Secret of the Cross 17 

ing God, had human consciousness. A king cannot resign. 
A king has absolute responsibility. In this sense, Christ 
is King of the human race. He must undertake the re¬ 
sponsibility for this task. Students and learned men who 
have never undertaken to bear the consequences of the 
failures of others find it impossible to grasp this. Such 
academic recluses, while continually talking in a censori¬ 
ous way about the faults of others, have not the slightest 
intention of undertaking to bear the consequences of 
those faults on their own shoulders. 

This, then, was the secret of Jesus Christ. And this 
we can fit into our daily lives. And advancing one more 
step, taking the “ filling up of the measure of what is 
lacking in the suffering of Christ ” as our responsibility, 
we must make the world’s sorrows our own. That is 
Christianity. The moment we ourselves are saved, we 
must set ourselves to saving others. The way Christ 
became the Atoning Lamb was by his hanging on the 
Cross and dying there. And Christianity for me means 
to dedicate myself to serve others even unto death. That, 
I am convinced, is the true Way of Jesus Christ. Chris¬ 
tianity means to save others. That is the way of the 
Cross, and the true way of Christ. 

PRAYER 

Father God: We thank Thee that we have been enabled 
to meditate on the Secret of Christ. As He chose the 
death of the Cross, fully embracing its ultimate bitter¬ 
ness, we too will walk the narrow path, chained to the 
Cross. Since this unworthy servant of Thine will hence¬ 
forward move only as bound to the Cross, I beseech Thee 
to lead even me in the Way of Christ. Through Christ 
we pray. Amen. 


II 


THE CROSS IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUS 

The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but 
to minister, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 
Matthew 20:28. 


There is a famous cathedral in the city of Gloucester, 
England, built eight hundred and fifty years ago and very 
beautiful. In its crypt lies the body of King Edward II 
arrayed in full armor. Up to a hundred years ago it was 
the custom for pilgrims to pass through the little door into 
the crypt and walk around the body of King Edward, and 
even today his name is not forgotten. 

Edward II was the hero of the first great Crusade, and 
the Crusades are historic. There are many crosses on the 
walls of Jerusalem carved by the Crusaders, who at¬ 
tempted to regain the land of the Savior — snatched away 
by the Mohammedans. Through more than a dozen of 
these Crusades, over a period of more than two hundred 
years, and despite repeated failures, they continued in 
the effort, and many gave their lives in the attempt. They 
carved their crosses as a sign of their sacrifice and self¬ 
dedication. 

The Crusades were of course an extremely crude ex¬ 
pression of Christian devotion. And yet, out of the very 
midst of this warlike period, with armies on the march all 
over Europe, grew one of the significant phases of the 
Christian Brotherhood Movement. Many of the Cru- 
18 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 19 

saders helped the poor and practised the brotherly kind¬ 
ness of the Christian church. In Florence, for instance, 
Crusaders at this period went out to look after the sick 
who lay ill in the streets. They put masks over their 
faces so that others would not find out who they were. 
We need today the spirit of the Crusader-nurses who put 
masks over their faces in old Florence. 

I am against war. But I feel the glamour of the brave 
samurai spirit of the many hundreds of thousands of 
men who fought, not to regain territory or to hunt treasure, 
but for one single purpose, to win back the tomb in which 
Jesus was buried. While the crowds today seek night 
life and gambling parties I admire the sacrificial spirit 
of those who gave up honor, wealth and security to un¬ 
dertake a more than hundred day journey from England 
to Asia Minor. 

Whence did it all come? Simply because the son of a 
common laborer, a carpenter, had hung on a cross and 
died. The crowned heads of Europe were controlled by 
that laborer’s spirit of sacrifice and devotion. Germany, 
France, Italy and other countries allied themselves and 
organized an army many times the size of that of Japan, 
while time after time they tried to regain the tiny plot 
of ground on which the Tomb is situated. 

They did not seek more land but more religion. The 
Japanese remember the story of the occupation of Kaga 
Province by the Ikko Sect of Buddhism during a period 
of ninety-three years. But the Crusaders continued their 
effort for more than twice as long and were many times 
the size of the forces of Rennyo Shonin, the Ikko leader. 

From the modern point of view, the Crusades were a 
strange adventure, but their motive was that of sacrificial 
service. For the sake of Christ the Crusaders plodded 
along on foot from England to France, France to Italy, 


20 Meditations on the Cross 

thence to Greece and at last to Asia Minor. Consider 
the depth of feeling which must have inspired them! 
These were ideal warriors. They would forgive an enemy, 
if only he would give them leave to worship freely in the 
holy land of Jesus. They had developed the chivalry 
which renders merciful service to women and children. 
It is this chivalry which impresses us in reading the 
stories of the Crusades. It represents the height of ro¬ 
mance. I am against war but I find myself responding to 
the spirit of the Crusaders. 

Once more I ask, whence did it arise? It came from the 
faith in the heart of that carpenter. He was convinced 
that for him to endure agony patiently was to become a 
vicarious sacrifice for the worst sin in the world. The 
Crusaders were possessed by the same belief. In the 
spirit of the Cross they died. They sought to protect 
the banner of the Cross. The Crusaders can be explained 
only by the Cross. 

PRACTISING LOVE, NOT THEORIZING ABOUT IT 

Modern Christians are called to be Crusaders also, but 
on a higher level. Like that crucified carpenter, we must 
also take upon ourselves the responsibility for our gen¬ 
eration. This means not only forgiving the folks who 
crucify us, but even laying hold of the worst of the sins 
of modern society and curing them, redeeming them, ad¬ 
justing them, just as much as if they were our own per¬ 
sonal sins that we ourselves had committed. Rejoicing 
in the incidental sacrifice and suffering, we must reor¬ 
ganize society so as to lift all human beings up to the 
high places of God. Therefore, as did the Crusaders of 
old, we choose the Cross as our symbol; for in this defini¬ 
tion of it lies the height of morality and the heart of 
Christianity. 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 21 

Tolstoi was attracted to Jesus by his teaching of love, 
and in his turn interpreted it to many others. And yet I 
feel that Tolstoi never fully understood the very thing 
which he sought to exemplify, for he maintained that the 
most extraordinary thing about Jesus was his ideas. 
“ Man is a fool on his instinctive levels/’ wrote the Rus¬ 
sian prophet, “ but through ideas he can control his in¬ 
stincts. The reason for the greatness of Jesus was the 
superiority of his thinking.” So far, so good. But must 
we stop there? I cannot agree with Tolstoi in that the in¬ 
stincts can be controlled by mere ideas. Ideas alone are 
valueless. Deeds must express them. Tolstoi says the 
Sermon on the Mount is the great thing, but the actual life 
of Jesus in which he practised what he preached seems to 
me greater even than the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus in¬ 
carnated love in his ideas, but more than that he was the 
very incarnation of love in his practice. 

The idea of love was not new with him, but his con¬ 
sistent practice was. Take, for instance, the matter of 
non-resistance. Jesus was not the only prophet in his 
time to teach the love of enemies. In his History of the 
Jews , Josephus tells the story of a contemporary of Jesus 
who held the same idea and who was also a revolutionary 
leader. The difference was that he abandoned his prin¬ 
ciple of non-resistance when the Roman troops came, and 
protected himself by force! Jesus was unique since be¬ 
cause he loved his enemies he offered no resistance and 
remained silent in the presence of those who dragged him 
to trial. Today we have forgotten even the name of the 
other, while we remember the name of Jesus. 

The reasons for the arrest of Jesus are clear. In the 
first place, he was said to be a traitor. Appearances were 
against him in this regard, for it looked as though he had 
gathered together five thousand men and plotted an in- 


22 


Meditations on the Cross 

surrection. The truth was, however, that it was not he 
who had done the planning, but the gang of five thousand 
insurrectionists who had sought to prevail upon him to 
fall in with their plot. 

In Japan we have a similar story, that of Saigo Taka- 
mori, with a very different outcome. Saigo permitted 
himself to be forced by his followers to start what is known 
in Japanese history as the Saigo Insurrection. They 
came to him and said, “ Saigo, it is begun. Is it all right? ” 
In contrast to Jesus’ withdrawal from the five thousand, 
Saigo answered with a non-committal “ Uhuh! ” and thus 
condemned the country to a ten years’ warfare. 

Again, Jesus had set aside the religious ceremonialism 
of the day and to the police was a disturber of the peace. 
He had said, “ Destroy this temple! ” (John 2:19.) Built 
at a cost of two billion yen, this temple was to the Jews 
their sacred national shrine, comparable to the Imperial 
Shrine of the ancestors of the Japanese Emperors at Ise. 
Early in the modern era the Japanese Minister of Educa¬ 
tion who was famed and feared for his progressiveness, 
Yurei Mori, was assassinated for a similar reason. An 
unfounded rumor was circulated that he had lifted the 
curtain of the holy of holies of this sacred shrine, with 
his walking stick.* 

One more reason for the arrest of Jesus was that he 
had called himself the Son of God, and this was blasphemy. 
Treason, disturbing the peace, and blasphemy! Taken 
together these three certainly constituted crime worthy 
of capital punishment. And the third of these, blasphemy, 
is punishable by death in Japan also, only that in our 
country it is irreverence toward the Throne instead of 
blasphemy toward God. 

* At this time in Japan it was profanity to lift the curtain of the 
Ise shrine even with one’s hand, and much worse to do so with a stick. 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 23 

Aware of these circumstances, Jesus made a firm resolu¬ 
tion to face death and went forward in that decision. His 
opposition came mostly from the religious leaders of his 
day. It was the Pharisees, the Mussolin-ists of that time 
and country, who brought him to his death. This party 
had six thousand members and was very zealous, and of 
a narrow, exclusive spirit, like the Nichiren Buddhists of 
Japan. Jesus was broad-minded and would eat with all 
sorts of people. “ Look at that degenerate fellow! ” they 
would say, “ eating with tax-gatherers and sinners! He’s 
unfit to lead the nation! ” 

The Pharisees were bitterly opposed to paying taxes to 
their foreign conquerors, the Romans. Jesus offended 
these rabid nationalists by saying it was all right to do so, 
and they suspected him of being in cahoots with the bribed 
government officials, and even of receiving bribes himself. 
“ While we pray and fast for national reconstruction, Jesus 
eats and drinks and never fasts. He is a godless wretch,” 
they criticized. But those persons were themselves rather 
soiled with money. 

The Sadducees, the ruling class, were the ones who 
wanted to make money from the religious ceremonials. 
It had become the rule that a bull could not be offered for 
sacrifice unless it had been temple-branded. This created 
a monopoly and a single bull worth six yen was sold in the 
Temple by the Sadducees for six times that amount, or 
thirty-six yen. No one was allowed to go outside and 
bring in other cattle for sacrifice and thus break the mo¬ 
nopoly. Christ said that was wrong and drove out the 
profiteers. At that, strife broke out between the religious 
leaders and the ruling class, for it became true that with 
Jesus present these latter could not make their swollen 
profits. Naturally this was an excellent reason for having 
him executed. 


24 Meditations on the Cross 

It was when this issue arose that Jesus said something 
about destroying the temple. “ Why did you overturn 
the tables and drive out the beasts? ” he was asked, and 
replied, as in John 2:19, “ Destroy this temple and in three 
days I will rebuild it.” To the Oriental there is obvious 
a touch of humor in this cryptic reply. Jesus was hu¬ 
morously looking forward to his own impending demoli¬ 
tion, all the more to be expected because of that particular 
day’s work of temple-cleansing. 

JESUS IN COURT 

As we have said, Jesus was arrested because of the 
decision of the Sanhedrin of Seventy Elders. The San¬ 
hedrin’s order is recorded (John 11:57) to have Jesus 
arrested as quickly as possible. This order probably 
looked much like those in north China today, where the 
visitor finds great gates at the entrance to the walled 
cities and villages, with placards on the gates reading 
something as follows: 

REWARD OFFERED 
TEN THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD 
FOR THE HEAD OF SO-AND-SO 

At the village gates in Judea there were probably placards 
posted reading, 

THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
FOR THE HEAD OF JESUS 

and below such words were probably added the reasons 
he was wanted by the authorities: he was a traitor, a 
blasphemer, and a law-breaker. 

Jesus was arrested in the park of the Mount of Olives, 
in which the ancient olive trees are still standing. On 
the way to the Garden of Gethsemane on the north side 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 25 

of Jerusalem there is a bridge, just beyond the Beautiful 
Gate. Probably they went through the Gate to reach it. 
Jesus passed the Temple and went out through this Gate 
on his way to the Garden. Thus he may have been seen by 
the nationalist leader, Annas, the son-in-law of Caiaphas 
the chief priest, the president of the senate, whose position 
was like that of the head of the group of Elder Statesmen 
of Japan. It was by the servants of Annas that Jesus was 
arrested. 

“You say you have come from heaven — is it true? ” 

“ How about your having said you would destroy the 
Temple? ” 

At these questions Jesus was silent. His accusers were 
offended at his silence and could do nothing, for they 
had no power to execute capital punishment. So the next 
day they took him to Pilate. The latter said, “ That is 
not my sort of a problem. That is a religious issiie.” And 
because he was of unsound conscience, Pilate evaded the 
issue by saying, “ This case belongs to another jurisdic¬ 
tion. Jesus is a Galilean. Send him to the palace of 
Herod Antipas.” 

Christ was sent to Herod, and thus, while being sent 
from place to place, was convicted as a traitor. Herod 
was anxious to see Christ face to face. Ever since he 
had killed John the Baptist, alarmed to the point of see¬ 
ing John’s ghost, Herod had been in fear that Christ was 
John come to life again. 

But though they brought before him this Christ who was 
John resurrected, Christ was silent and said nothing. He 
had called Herod a fox. Herod had committed adultery, 
having married the daughter of King Areta and then 
divorced her. Christ knew Herod for what he was. So 
when Herod asked, “ Are you intending to stir up a revolu¬ 
tion? ” Christ said nothing. Herod was nonplussed and 


26 Meditations on the Cross 

said, “ This does not belong to my jurisdiction,” and sent 
him back to Pilate. 

Johanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's minister, was in¬ 
timate with the wife of Pilate. It appears that these two 
women had some conversation about Christ about this 
time, for Pilate’s wife said to her husband: “ That Jesus 
Christ is a greater man even than John, and it would be 
very wrong to kill him. I have been warned in a dream.” 

Now Pilate’s wife was the niece of Tiberias Caesar. 
Pilate was not made governor of Syria because he was 
great himself, but because of his wife. So when his wife 
said he ought not to do anything, Pilate should have 
heeded her. That is written in the Bible. Therefore 
Pilate washed his hands before the crowd and said, “ I will 
have nothing to do with this affair.” But when the crowd 
got angry and demanded, “ What! Won’t you judge a 
man who is against Caesar? ” Pilate was disturbed and 
uncertain as to what to do in the face of this challenge. 
He probably walked back and forth, back and forth, in 
indecision, in and out of the court. And finally he said, 
“All right! ” and rendered judgment that Christ was to 
be executed. 

Pilate had two or three passages of dialogue with Christ: 

“ It is true that you say you are the King of the Jews? ” 

“ Yes, it is true! ” 

Christ was not talking about an earthly kingdom, and 
Pilate knew it. He knew that Christ was speaking re¬ 
ligiously in calling himself a king. But after their con¬ 
versation was over, Pilate was forced by the crowd to de¬ 
liver Christ up to be executed. The details of Christ’s 
trial are described in Matthew. 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 27 

CHRIST ON THE CROSS 

Christ was taken to Mount Calvary outside the city 
of Jerusalem, and crucified on the top of this hill. He 
lived while hanging on the Cross from nine in the morning 
until about three in the afternoon. 

Crucifixion is the most severe form of capital punish¬ 
ment. Executions at the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate 
took the form of decapitation after harakiri, a much less 
cruel form of punishment. It was the Romans who in¬ 
vented crucifixion. Crucifixion does not affect the heart 
nor cut the arteries. The person is simply hung up by 
nails. Death comes as a result of nervous exhaustion, by 
starvation, or by bleeding. In Japan, although crucifixion 
was used as a form of punishment, they used to mitigate 
the cruelty of it by killing those who were to be executed 
by shooting them with arrows after they were put on the 
cross. 

There were two others crucified with Christ. On each 
side of him was a robber. 

There are seven famous Words which Christ cried out 
on the cross. 

I. The first was: “ Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do.” Ordinary human beings are likely to 
say, rather, “ Remember it against them! ” It was just at 
that point that Christ was unique, in that he forgave peo¬ 
ple and did not think evil of them. At whatever point we 
tap it, Christ’s story is a story of love. 

Yukinaga Konishi,* a Japanese Catholic Christian of 

* French and Spanish friars brought Christianity to Japan in the 
seventeenth century. After many had been converted the government 
took alarm from these words of a shipwrecked Spanish captain: “After 
the priests will come my King and his soldiers and take your country.” 
Thousands of Christians were martyred, and their blood has become the 
seed of the Japanese church today. 


28 


Meditations on the Cross 


three centuries ago, was crucified in the Sanjo river bed at 
Kyoto, and because he remained silent at the time of his 
dying, he is a great man in Western (Catholic) history, 
though in Japanese history he is written of merely as a 
worthless fellow who had embraced Christianity. He was 
really a very great person. One of his friends was Hara¬ 
mondo, a relative of Kasuga no Tsubone, who is said to 
have lived at Kasuga Cho, Koishikawa, Tokyo, where the 
Suda eye hospital now stands. Haramondo sympathized 
with Yukinaga Konishi and advised the latter to give up 
his Christianity, but he would not listen, and so was finally 
crucified. Haramondo is written of in the Dai Bosatsu 
Toke y under the title of “ Adoration of the Holy Mother,” 
by Nakazato Kaizan. 

From the point of view of human instincts, enemies are 
to be hated, but Christ could forgive them. Love must go 
as far as this. And this becomes possible as the Spirit of 
God enters a man. As a mother loves her erring child, we 
must love our enemies and pray God for their forgiveness. 
Apart from God this spirit of forgiving enemies is not com¬ 
prehensible. When a woman has been married and then 
divorced, if she lacks faith, she feels resentful, but with 
religious faith she can have the spirit of “ Father, forgive 
them.” 

II. “ Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” This 
is Christ’s second saying on the Cross. 

One of the two robbers, probably the one being crucified 
on the left, called insultingly to him: “ Hey, Jesus, if ye’re 
the Son of God, hadn’t y’oughter save us as well as yer- 
self? ” 

Hearing that, the robber on the right began to speak in 
defense of Christ: “ Hey, you fellow there, there’s a world 
of difference between this honorable gentleman and your¬ 
self. This gentleman has done no wrong.” 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 29 

And then he asked of Christ: “ Sir, when you go to 
Heaven, please remember me.” At once Christ answered: 
“ All right! Today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Thus, even in his last hour, Christ gave the poor fellow 
the assurance that he could go to heaven. At such a time, 
when he was in intolerable pain, it would have been en¬ 
tirely excusable in him to have put off such a request from 
another person by saying that he could not pay attention 
to it, and to ask him to wait till a more convenient oc¬ 
casion. But Christ, because from the bottom of his heart 
he wanted to save men, revealed his will-to-save them 
even in his last moment. 

As for me, I am ashamed to say that when the un¬ 
employed come in great numbers, I get tired out and finally 
am likely to say unkind things to them. Shopkeepers, 
too, when they are busy or absorbed in their own affairs 
are likely to become angry at the telephone interruptions. 
But Christ did nothing of the kind. 

III. Christ, anxious about his mother, and seeing her 
and his beloved disciple standing near one another, said 
to her, “ Woman behold thy son,” and to his disciple, “ Be¬ 
hold thy mother.” 

IV. He said, “ I thirst.” At that, those who were stand¬ 
ing beside the cross tried to get him to drink a narcotic. 
Ordinarily, when suffering such excruciating pain, any¬ 
one would have wanted to be put out of misery as soon as 
possible. But Christ refused the drug and died in full 
consciousness. 

V. He cried, “Eli, Eli, lama, sabachtani,” which 
means, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ” 
People who hate Christianity say that for Christ to say 
this in his dying moment was cowardly. Kato Hiroyuki 
criticized this as a cowardly expression, but Christ was 
quoting the first verse of Psalm Twenty-two. Sung hun- 


30 Meditations on the Cross 

dreds of years beforehand, this Twenty-second Psalm is 
prophetic of a righteous person suffering on the Cross, and 
of the casting of lots even for his clothing. Christ, seeing 
before his very eyes the casting of lots for his clothing, was 
reminded of this Psalm, and sang it with a loud voice. 

VI. If this interpretation of the Fifth Word were in¬ 
correct, the Sixth Word, “ It is finished,” would not have 
been uttered. For just what was finished? It was the 
work of redeeming mankind that was finished. Christ 
endured up to this point. 

VII. His last word was “ Father, into thy hands I com¬ 
mit my spirit.” Saying this, he ceased to breathe. Christ 
did not use the cold word, “ God,” but said “ Father.” 
And he spoke not of death but rather said, “ Take charge 
of my spirit.” The message for us in this utterance of 
Christ is very clear. Just as we ask the bank to take care 
of our money, we are to ask God to care for our souls. 
If in our self-will we keep hold of them ourselves, we are 
likely to do them grave injury; but if we commit them to 
God, they are safe. 

Thus the first and the last of the Seven Words on the 
Cross are prayers. 

AN ANALYSIS OF THE CROSS-CONSCIOUSNESS 

Then why did Christ die? This is a question about 
which, as has been said before, misunderstanding often 
arises. We take it for granted that Christ was Christ 
from the beginning, but that was not the case. His first 
name was Jesus. “ Christ ” is a name given him after¬ 
ward as a title of reverence. While he was alive, Christ 
did not think of himself as great or extraordinary. When 
the disciples said, “ You are the Son of God,” Christ 
humbly told them to keep silent. And they were told that 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 31 

if they believed in him they would be able to do “ greater 
things ” than he did. 

Since Christ was a humble-minded person, he himself 
never said he was the Christ, even though he was told, 
“ You are the Son of God.” When John the Baptist sent 
messengers and asked him, “ Are you the One the Jewish 
people have long been awaiting? ” these messengers re¬ 
ceived the answer, “ The blind receive their sight, the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them; and 
blessed is he, whosoever finds no occasion of stumbling 
in me.” 

Religion is the creation of values. It is making worth¬ 
less people over into worthy ones. Real Christianity con¬ 
sists, not in handsome placards before church edifices, 
but in tearing down such signs if need be, in order to be 
able to win and save even one victim of unemployment. 

The name, Christ, was given later. Peter used it first 
of all. Even though there are folks who talk continually 
about Christ’s second coming, it will not do to believe 
them; their emphasis is a mistaken one.* The real Christ 
is one who dies for others. 

To love men to the uttermost — that is what Christ 
does. To that end, sin must be redeemed. Simply to be 
inactive and not to commit sin one’s self is not enough. 
Next door is a slum, and in it there are prostitutes and un¬ 
employed, living in the crowded housing of slum con- 

* “ In the Japanese Holiness church and in the Free Methodist Church 
in Japan they have a peculiar psychology. They say that Christ is com¬ 
ing on the top of Mt. Fuji, and they are preparing white robes to wear 
when they shall meet him there. They have fixed the month, year, and 
even the day of his appearance, calculating it from the Book of Daniel. 
They are too much in a hurry! ” (Quotation from one of Dr. Kagawa’s 
addresses in Shanghai, in the Shanghai Number, Friends of Jesus.) 


3 2 


Meditations on the Cross 


ditions. To turn blind eyes and deaf ears toward these — 
this is sin! Christ was fully conscious of such conditions, 
he thought as God does about them, he suffered pro¬ 
foundly in his soul about them, and so was put on the 
Cross and died. 

Among the slum-dwellers I have known there have been 
many murderers — some even among my former Sunday 
School children — but those who had some Christian 
teaching agonized over their sins. One of these was 
Fujita Sanzo, a bean-curd seller. One day Fujita killed 
a drunken man accidentally, by striking him in anger 
when the drunk overturned and ruined his day’s supply 
of precious bean curd. After that Fujita was tormented 
by the ghost of the dead man. Fujita came to me and 
said, “ God is with you, and if I may take hold of your 
hand when I go to sleep, the ghost will not come.” So 
after that, every night, he slept with me, holding my hand. 
While he continued to hold my hand, the ghost did not 
come, but if he was separated from me for even a moment 
he would begin to groan. 

If the consciousness of sin becomes strong in us, we can 
understand that Christ died for us. If your little finger is 
wounded, the next finger cannot remain unaffected. If 
anyone is struck down by an automobile, the bystanders 
who failed to warn cannot disclaim responsibility. Simi¬ 
larly, a textile workers’ strike has a profound relationship 
to the rest of us. While so many remain unemployed, we 
ought all at least to remember them in our prayers, and 
give up one meal to help feed them. So long as our 
thoughts are partial, biased, and shut up in a class-limited 
compartment, we may have no sense of guilt about such 
matters; but as soon as we begin to think in universal 
terms, we realize that we dare not ignore them, that there 
is sin involved in such ignorance. We must shed our 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 33 

blood in remedying such situations. That is why Christ 
said, “ My blood is shed for the redemption of sin.” 

REDEMPTION THE CONSUMMATION OF LOVE 

As I said before, man’s consciousness may be divided 
into three stages — unconsciousness, semi-consciousness, 
and full consciousness. In the unconscious stage, men 
kill other human beings without thinking anything of it. 
In war they kill men and shout, “ Banzai! Hurrah! ” 
But there is something the matter with the man who can 
do this. He is still in the unconscious stage. 

When semi-consciousness arrives, as it did suddenly 
to Naozane Kumagai, he was smitten with the conviction 
that he had committed a sin in killing a man, and so be¬ 
came a priest for the rest of his life.* Among the Jews 
in the semi-conscious stage, they felt that they could not 
die themselves and went no farther than to get a goat to 
sacrifice in their place. It would seem very strange to us 
today to behave in this manner, but that was the way they 
met the situation of sin in ancient times. For eight days 
from the tenth of July onward there was always a great 
festival in Palestine, to beg God’s forgiveness. At that 
time a red cloth would be put on the horns of a goat, and 
the priest would lay his hand on the goat’s head and pray, 
(on behalf of all the people) — “ Forgive all our sins, 
known and unknown, for the past year.” According to 
Jewish custom, the goat which was to bear the sins of the 
people was driven into the wilderness. This was some¬ 
thing like the Bon festival of the Japanese people. 

When full consciousness comes, a goat is seen to be 
insufficient. Saying that he must take the place of the 
goat, Christ gave his own life in sacrifice. Unless he 

* Naozane Kumagai was an ancient Japanese warrior who killed the 
young son of his friend in battle. 


34 Meditations on the Cross 

offered himself for the sins of others, he would not be 
worthy to be called the Christ, he thought. And when he 
was put on the Cross, he said, “ It is finished,” that is, 
“ It is fulfilled.” Herein lies the Christ-like character of 
Christ. We ordinary folks are very flighty and uncertain, 
very likely not to carry out our best intentions. But 
Christ from the beginning planned to die for men, and 
went straight ahead courageously to carry out that plan. 

Christ went steadily forward, with God-consciousness, 
and endured even the hateful sin of his enemies. The 
Cross is the consummate crystallization of love. This 
we reverence; this we call redemptive love. Redemptive 
love redeems and makes up for the sins of others. Through 
this redemptive love the people of the world have been 
saved — no one knows how many billions of them. Hu¬ 
man history was at first unconscious; then, up to the 
time of Christ there was the epoch of semi-consciousness; 
and since Christ the human race is very gradually becom¬ 
ing fully conscious. But some people do not develop fully, 
and stop at semi-consciousness. 

In social reconstruction this redemptive consciousness 
is imperative. Even in the creation of a political party, 
it is necessary that one be lenient with the faults of ene¬ 
mies. Any other attitude in meeting such faults is bound 
to cause factions in the organization. 

Christ set about solving this difficult problem. There¬ 
fore Christ’s movement is called a Love-Movement. 

Without the Cross, the universe does not evolve. Since 
a sin in any part of society affects the whole, someone 
must assume responsibility for the whole. Therefore, 
unless the Cross-consciousness is reflected in us, we can¬ 
not bring about real social reconstruction. Therein lies 
the truth of the Eternal Cross. This is why over a period 


The Cross in the Consciousness of Jesus 35 

of two hundred years, hundreds of thousands of people 
attempted to regain the tomb of Christ. 

I repeat it — unless someone becomes a stepping stone 
for others, society will not improve. The proletarian 
parties split up because they lacked the spirit of service for 
others. On the other hand, if one aims, in any situation, 
to become a sacrifice for others, victory is near. And if 
we can progressively develop this spirit of sacrifice within 
ourselves, the world is bound to get better. 

Everywhere the world is waiting for those who will 
sacrifice themselves for others — in the villages, in the 
towns, in the factories, the schools, the hospitals. For 
anyone who aspires to be a leader, it is absolutely neces¬ 
sary to have this spirit of Christ. Lenin spoke of being 
under the banner of Marx, but I want to challenge men 
everywhere to foregather under the banner of the Cross 
of Christ. 


PRAYER 

Father God: When we meditate on the road trodden by 
Jesus the Carpenter, it is of the blood of the Cross which 
he shed that we think, and give thanks. Nevertheless 
even yet we do not understand this Blood of Christ. 
Though even yet we may be doubting it as an historical 
fact, we thank Thee that Christ did indeed reveal the 
spirit of God on earth, for our Salvation. We are gathered 
here together under the banner of the Cross, repenting 
of our sins, and for the salvation of others. Enable us 
to pass our whole lives in the spirit of the Cross, partici¬ 
pating in the suffering of God, and sharing in His Love, 
to lift the world and save it, carrying it on our shoulders. 
Through Christ we pray. Amen. 


m 

THE CROSS IN THE MIND OF CHRIST 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous- 
ness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you } and perse¬ 
cute you , and shall say all manner of evil against you 
falsely , for my sake . Matthew 5:10, 11. 


The words printed above from Matthew’s Gospel are 
the first words of Jesus in which a shadow appears. 
Even as early as this, Jesus had made up his mind that 
the Righteous One must suffer. Thus his crucifixion was 
anticipated by him very early; it was not something ac¬ 
cepted somewhere in the course of his later experience. 
The more profound and penetrating his understanding of 
life became, the more the Cross was stamped upon his 
bosom. In Matthew 9:15, he says that the Bridegroom, 
Christ, will be taken captive by the people. This was 
in the early days of the Galilean ministry and I think 
it had some relation to the imprisonment of John the 
Baptist. 

In the mind of Jesus there was the thought that the 
righteous person must suffer. Unless the righteous one 
suffered, he could not be called a righteous person. The 
pastors and evangelists of both Christianity and Bud¬ 
dhism lose their mission when they live too comfortably. 
Anyone who aims at accomplishment must expect to meet 
with opposition. 


36 


The Cross in the Mind of Christ 37 

Next, Jesus is shown saying the same thing in his teach¬ 
ing to the disciples. In Matthew 10:17-23 he is telling 
them that they will meet with persecutions and giving 
them the courage to face them. How is it with us? We 
who have resolved to take up our cross and live in austerity 
— have we the courage to fight for righteousness as whole¬ 
heartedly as Christ did? We ought not to expect to live 
in comfort. We must rise above the evils of society, 
convinced that Jesus is always at our side, saying to us, 
“ Yes, of course you are going to be persecuted for My 
Sake; are you ready for it? ” 

In Matthew 10:38-39 the word “cross” appears for 
the first time. Just what does it mean here? “ And he 
that taketh not his cross, and followeth not after me, is 
not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: 
and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” This 
is a paradox. All religious truth is, I believe, ultimately 
paradox. That which is nothing to us is perfect to God, 
and all our perfection that we gain with so much effort 
is as nothing to him. 

In Kobe, a young man once came to me and said he 
wanted to be an evangelist. 

“ Have you the courage to go to prison? ” I asked him. 
“ Have you the grit to lead a strike? ” 

“ No,” he answered. 

“ Then give up the idea of becoming an evangelist,” I 
said. 

The kind of Christianity which makes me want to save 
myself alone is useless. We must lay hold upon a more 
ardent, fervent, passionate faith. 

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CROSS 

Then Jesus thought more and more deeply. Even at 
the time of the Galilean ministry, he was meditating pro- 


38 Meditations on the Cross 

foundly upon the Cross. Thus he began to realize that 
he must finally face toward his goal of crucifixion. We 
may think that Jesus did not begin to be aware of the 
likelihood of crucifixion until after John’s execution, but 
according to Matthew this is not the case. Even in the 
midst of the Galilean ministry, he is already conscious 
of the Cross: “ But he answered and said unto them, An 
evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and 
there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet 
Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in 
the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days 
and three nights in the heart of the earth.” 

In Matthew 12:40 Jesus says, “ The Son of Man must 
be three days and nights in the heart of the earth.” This 
Cross-consciousness develops at the very height of Christ’s 
popularity during the Galilean ministry. For when he said 
that the real sign which he would give would be that of 
Jonah, who was immured in the stomach of a fish, it shows 
that he was already aware that he would meet with capital 
punishment in some form. To be three days and nights 
in the stomach of a fish signified the Cross. Thus Jesus 
hinted at the Cross at this time, but this made no im¬ 
pression on the minds of the disciples. But when we 
reach the 16th chapter of Matthew, we notice that the 
situation is changed. In Matthew 16:21 occur the words: 
“ He began to show them.” And from this time on Jesus 
says clearly that he must be killed at Jerusalem. Those 
who are to kill him are the priests, the scholars, and 
the king; and he is the one who is to be killed and is 
to be put on the cross and to be resurrected on the third 
day. This had been implied when he mentioned Jonah. 
This consciousness of Jesus became a vivid reality, a 
new point of departure. A great religious leader of 
England, J. Campbell Morgan, has called this moment 


The Cross in the Mind of Christ 39 

when he began to teach the cross openly, the crisis of 
Christ. 

A great many people are not willing to accept literally 
this dark cross teaching. Nineteenth century theology did 
not understand this thing called the Cross. During the 
nineteenth century, the opinion prevailed that the cross 
was unimportant, but I think that the Cross is Jesus’ 
central idea. Why did he speak of it? There are three 
reasons. 

THE THREE REASONS 

First, without the Cross, Jesus thought that he could 
not make his point clear. The environment probably 
forced him to the Cross. During that cruel Roman era 
one’s message would hardly carry weight unless one were 
crucified. At present there is such a general acceptance 
of Christianity that the Department of Education helps 
to distribute Christian posters, and we are all apt to be 
too easy-going. But Jesus could not ascend to the right 
hand of the Father without having first endured the cross. 

The second reason was neither related to the social en¬ 
vironment nor to the idea of Jesus; rather, it was because 
it was written in the scriptures. These, to a great extent, 
guided the mind of Jesus. In Mark 9:12 it says: “ Elijah 
does indeed come first and reforms everything, and do not 
the scriptures say of the Son of Man that he will suffer 
much and be refused? ” It is as if he were asking: “ Say, 
you disciples of mine, what do you think the Bible means 
when it says that the Savior who is called the Son of Man 
will come, and that this Savior must undergo much suf¬ 
fering? ” This described Christ’s own feelings, his at¬ 
titude toward life. 

And we too, how do we interpret this passage? In 
Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53, it is written that the Son of Man 


40 Meditations on the Cross 

is not to have merely glory and success but that he must 
inevitably undergo suffering. And Jesus is saying to us, 
“ Say, how do you read that passage? What does it mean 
to you? ” If Christ possessed the consciousness of being 
the Son of Man, the Savior, it was also necessary for him 
to have the consciousness of the Cross. 

Jesus gave an ambiguous answer to the question of John 
the Baptist in Matthew 11:26. When asked, “ Art thou he 
that cometh? ” Christ did not reply, “ Yes,” for he knew 
that “ he that cometh ” — he for whom John and all the 
Jews were waiting — must be put on a cross. Jesus 
thought that he was the One who was to come but he had 
not yet brought that to realization by being put on the 
Cross. I think this was Jesus’ honest self-criticism in view 
of the fact that the Cross-announcement of his Messiah- 
ship was as yet a matter of the future. 

Jesus was not at that time yet revealed as the “ Suffer¬ 
ing Messiah.” So although he himself possessed the Mes¬ 
sianic consciousness, a Christ-with-a-good-reputation, such 
as he had at that time, was not yet a real Messiah. A 
real Messiah must go through more suffering, he thought. 
The suffering Christ comes first, the glorified one after¬ 
ward. The Messiah the disciples were thinking of was a 
Messiah of glory only, but the one that he himself was 
thinking of was a Christ who entered into his glory after 
passing through suffering, who came to resurrection after 
enduring the Cross. He thought the two things went to¬ 
gether in an inevitable sequence. We need to enter more 
deeply into this central idea of his. 

POINTING TOWARD THE CROSS 

Having thus broached the subject, Jesus frequently 
came back to it, especially on the way home from his 
second journey to foreign parts. “ Then said Jesus unto 


The Cross in the Mind of Christ 41 

his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matt. 
16:24.) 

At the end of the 10th chapter of Matthew, he repeats 
the same thing. Here, however, Jesus is still vague and 
indefinite, but when we reach the 16th of Matthew, he 
says it clearly: “ Let each one take up his cross and fol¬ 
low me” The position of these words is not accidental. 
The ambiguity with which Jesus at first held obscurely 
that the righteous would experience suffering such as that 
of Jonah has here given place to the clear statement that 
he is to die. 

Jesus’ first thought of the Cross grew out of his realiza¬ 
tion of the social circumstances in which he found him¬ 
self ; second, from his conception of sacrifice as revealed 
in the scriptures; and third, from his inner sense of his 
responsibility to God and humanity. After he had said, 
as in Matthew 16:24, “ You also must bear the cross,” 
Jesus climbed a mountain and when he came down from 
the mountain, he ^quoted scripture: 

“And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged 
them saying, ‘ Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be 
risen again from the dead.’ 

“ And his disciples asked him, saying, ‘ Why then say the scribes 
that Elias must first come? ’ 

“ And Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘ Elias truly shall first 
come, and restore all things.’ 

“ But I say unto you, ‘ That Elias is come already, and they knew 
him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise 
shall also the Son of Man suffer of them.’ 

“ Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John 
the Baptist.” (Matt. 17:9-13.) 

The Cross spoken of in the scriptures, Jesus here says, is 
the same as the Cross he must bear. Matthew 17:9 which 
speaks of Elijah, mentions him thus the second time. 


42 Meditations on the Cross 

Here once more Jesus repeats that he is to suffer. From 
that time, after descending the mountain, Jesus faces 
steadily down toward the dark way of the cross. Reach¬ 
ing the bottom of the mountain he says, in Matthew 17:17, 
“ How long shall I be with you! ” At this time a dark 
premonition comes to him that his time is short. And 
in Matthew 17:22-23 it is recorded that in returning from 
the second evangelistic journey he said, “ I am to be 
killed,” and that the disciples were sorrowful. 

After this, Jesus becomes more and more explicit in the 
expression of his deep conviction. The disciples gaze at 
him in amazement as he hastens forward. And although 
he is on his way toward Jerusalem, Jesus says clearly, 
“ I am to be put on the cross.” This he repeats in Mat¬ 
thew 26, on the night that they eat the Last Supper. His 
being put on the cross is for the shedding of blood, the 
remission of sins as it is written in the scripture, “ I must 
shed my blood.” In this fashion Jesus, convinced that he 
is to shed his blood for the human race, shows his de¬ 
termination to accept whatever happens, and yet prays: 
“ If it be possible, take this cup from me.” 

THE HOLY AGONY 

Although from the starting point in the fifth chapter of 
Matthew Jesus was resolved to face death, as he ap¬ 
proached the end of his life, he suffered agony. Some 
may call this cowardly and say that when he was agoniz¬ 
ing and suffering about his death he showed himself a 
desperate man. “ If it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me.” Though they may call this the utterance of a cow¬ 
ard, I think that without the record of this agony, the 
story would have been false to human nature. To be de¬ 
termined up to this point to say he would give his whole 
life to God and yet, when he faced the scaffold, to say: 


The Cross in the Mind of Christ 43 

“ Yes, I will submit to death as God’s lamb, but if it be 
possible, please take this cup from me,” — this I believe 
to be genuine. This is a real human Jesus. Though he 
may seem weak who says: “I am continually thinking 
that I must become a substitute and die for men, and if 
the human race needs such a sacrifice, O God, please let 
it take place.” But the modernists say, “ If God is love, 
such a sacrifice ought not to be needed.” I believe, how¬ 
ever, that this prayer of Christ’s was sincere, and at the 
last, when his prayer was not heard, God did demand the 
blood of redemption, and Jesus said: “ Thy will be done. 
If you need my life, I offer it up.” The very night when 
he prayed in this way, Jesus was arrested. 

This was the Cross which emerged out of the three-year¬ 
long process of Jesus’ thought, the Cross-consciousness 
that developed through the working of his mental proc¬ 
esses. At first Jesus seems to have thought the Cross 
was necessary more as a teaching of the truth, but 
along about the middle of his ministry, meditating on the 
death of John, on the predicted death of the Son of Man, 
and on all suffering in general, he suggested to his disciples 
that he must be killed. He discusses the same question in 
the Gethsemane prayer: “ If God’s love can be brought 
fully into operation without my passing through suffering, 
please save me. But I will not insist upon my own de¬ 
sires.” Thus saying, Jesus gladly embraced the Cross. 

How is it with us? Do we have this same thorough¬ 
going point of view? The Cross is our Cross. We must 
not think of it merely as a metaphor. We ourselves must 
be ready to be put on the Cross. Not seeking a success- 
Christ, we must more and more profoundly contemplate 
the Christ who accepted suffering and endured agony up 
to the final moment of the Cross. 


44 


Meditations on the Cross 


prayer 

Father God: Even today we are still absorbed in the 
contemplation of the Figure of Christ, as he suffered and 
agonized from the peak of popularity during the Galilean 
ministry to the time of his elevation on the Cross. But 
we ourselves, we confess it with shame, are always choos¬ 
ing things which are selfish, comfortable, too much ac¬ 
cording to our owri preferences and tastes. Show us, we 
beseech thee, the way of the Cross that we must follow, 
the way of Jesus. Show to me, I pray thee, the Cross in 
my daily occupation, the Cross in my intellectual life, the 
Cross connected with my economic status, the Cross in 
my social life, the Cross in my family life, and the Cross 
that I must bear for Jesus’ sake. Even though I shrink 
back from the Cross and say as Jesus said, “ If possible do 
not put this cross upon me, if possible take this cup away 
from me,” yet if this Cross and this cup be mine to bear 
and drink, enable me to accept them gladly. In ever 
deeper meditation on the Cross, enable each one of us to 
become a lesser Christ and to bring his truth into active 
and effective operation in this present day world. In his 
Holy Name, we pray. Amen. 


IV 


THE CROSS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL 

The bread that I will give for the worlds life is my 
own flesh. John 6:51. 


We are all taught to connect Christianity with the Cross. 
Even outside the Christian community, the Cross is con¬ 
stantly mentioned. The Cross means sacrifice, and a 
brave, gallant spirit of rising above suffering. No one has 
yet learned enough about how to put that Cross into prac¬ 
tice. Therefore let us ask the Fourth Gospel to yield us 
its secret. 

There are four books in the New Testament which are 
biographies of Jesus Christ — Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John. Of these, Matthew, Mark and Luke are similar and 
are called the Synoptic Gospels, while the Fourth Gospel 
is different from the others. There seems to be a reason 
for this dissimilarity. It may have been because the disci¬ 
ples had arranged and agreed among themselves that the 
author of the Fourth Gospel should record the things that 
are not written in Matthew, Mark or Luke. After the 
death of Jesus, they knew there would be a new era, that 
the age would change, and it did change. There would 
be no one else to record it, so they may have agreed to ask 
this writer of the Fourth Gospel to do so. 

Differing thus from the three Synoptics, the Fourth 
Gospel is a most interesting record. Its materials are 
probably derived not so much from the common people 
as in the cases of Matthew, Mark and Luke, but rather 
45 


46 Meditations on the Cross 

from the court, the governmental authorities. Thus we get 
the story told from a different angle. In studying the story 
of Kotoku Denjiro,* if one takes only what his friends 
said about him, the account is biassed, partial, one-sided. 
But if one takes the testimony of the government officials 
who examined him, there is a different side of the tale. 

Whether John wrote or did not write the Gospel which 
bears his name, it does carry strong evidence that much 
of its material came from government authorities. Among 
these officials were those who reverenced Jesus, such as 
Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. Though openly 
the latter did not ally himself with Christ, he may secretly 
have had communication with him; at any rate we know 
that Christ was buried in his tomb.f Both Joseph and 
Nicodemus were members of the Sanhedrin which con¬ 
ducted the first trial of Jesus. 

There was still another prominent official named Chusa, 
who was not a Roman but one of the lords associated with 
the King of Judea. Chusa is mentioned first among the 

* The name of Kotoku Denjiro is a by-word in Japan as that of the 
most famous would-be assassin of a Japanese Emperor. In the early 
years of this century, socialistic ideas were developing in Tokyo, espe¬ 
cially in the forum which took the place of a Sunday service at the 
Unitarian church. There were two parties. One believed in evolutionary 
and the other in revolutionary methods. The evolutionists eventuated 
in the Japan Federation of Labor, which now owns the old Unitarian 
church buildings as its headquarters. The revolutionists, led by Kotoku, 
left the church and, it is alleged, hatched a plan to assassinate the Em¬ 
peror. Kotoku and a dozen others were executed before any overt acts 
had been perpetrated. But the popular reaction against radicalism was 
so severe as to retard for years the efforts of social workers. It is said 
that the police confiscated from a mission school library even a book on 
The Social Life of Ants! 

t In Palestine there was a custom of borrowing a tomb for a person 
recently deceased, and of keeping the body in the borrowed tomb for 
about three months, surrounded by obituary gifts, before its final dis¬ 
position. The person who lent his tomb to Christ was Joseph of 
Arimathea. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 47 

members of the official class who came in contact with 
Jesus, in the Fourth Gospel, the circumstance being that 
his son was healed of illness by Jesus, and because of this 
healing of the child’s illness Chusa’s wife, Johanna, went 
about serving Jesus. (John 4.) 

Since the materials in the Fourth Gospel probably came 
from such sources, we may expect to have the govern¬ 
mental side emphasized. For instance, in John 7:44 it is 
recorded that officers were sent to arrest Jesus, but that 
these officers joined with the multitude in admiration of 
him. Again John 11:47-53 leaves no room for doubt that 
it was Sanhedrin members themselves who furnished some 
of the materials in John’s Gospel. For there it is written 
in detail, that on the very day the Sanhedrin convened, it 
was decided to have Jesus executed; and that the order 
was sent out as recorded in John 11:57: “ For the high 
priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone 
who found out where he was should let them know, so that 
they might arrest him.” 

Although in this fashion the decision of the Sanhedrin 
to kill Jesus had probably been published at the street 
corners of the towns and villages of the region, this San¬ 
hedrin decision did not by any means represent a unani¬ 
mous opinion among its own members. It was like the 
way things go in the Tokyo City Assembly, where the pro¬ 
nouncements of one or two influential men decide the pat¬ 
tern of events. There was a significant minority in the 
Sanhedrin which approved of Jesus, but was not able to 
confess it, because of fear for their own reputations: 
“ Even among the leading men, many came to believe in 
him, but on account of the Pharisees they would not ac¬ 
knowledge it, for fear of being excluded from the syna¬ 
gogues, for they cared more for the approval of men than 
for the approval of God.” (John 12:42-43.) 


48 Meditations on the Cross 

The Fourth Gospel is undoubtedly composed of records 
contributed by those who possessed an intimate knowledge 
of the inside facts about the Jewish government. In fact, 
these men who contributed to these materials were already 
repenting of their share in having killed Jesus and of the 
whole occurrence. That is why even the things which 
Pilate said confidentially to the tribunal are written up, 
for instance, what he said concerning the placard put over 
Jesus’ head on the cross: 

“Pilate had written a placard and had it put on the cross; it 
read ‘ Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews 
read this placard, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near 
the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the 
Jewish high priests said to Pilate, 

“ Do not write, ‘ The king of the Jews,’ but write, He said, ‘ I am 
the king of the Jews.’ ” 

Pilate answered, 

“What I have written, I have written! ” (John 19:19-22.) 

This record of the parley between the Sanhedrin and 
the governor could hardly have been written except by an 
intimate observer of the governmental situation, someone 
who had freedom to go and come continually at the court. 

The Fourth Gospel is therefore a record of the impres¬ 
sion made by Jesus on the Jerusalem officials. It was no 
doubt Nicodemus, who figures in chapter three, and 
Chusa, whose son was healed in chapter four, who, being 
members of the company which put Jesus to death, made 
their confessions to his most beloved disciples: 

“ It was like this . . .” 

“ That was the way it happened . . 

“ Really I don’t know how to express my intolerable 
regret . . .” 

In some such fashion, at the annual memorial days, 
year by year, they may have recalled and repented of it. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 49 

Written under such circumstances, the Fourth Gospel is 
a reliable document. In the three Synoptics the reasons 
for Jesus’ execution are not clearly set forth. It is evident 
from them merely that a person who did not deserve death 
met with capital punishment. Only in the Fourth Gospel 
are the reasons given for this tragedy. 

In 1919 I wrote a book called “ Adoration of the La¬ 
borer ” and was haled to court for it, for the first time in 
my experience. The court records on this occasion read 
as follows: “Although he appears moderate, temperate 
and sound, he is really crafty, sly, subtle, insidious, de¬ 
signing, treacherous and double-faced; and through ad¬ 
vancing radical theories gives the impression of cherishing 
revolutionary ideas! ” 

In the Fourth Gospel there are passages which read 
similarly. To the eyes of the officials of that time Jesus 
seemed a dangerous person, but when they came to think 
it over afterwards, those same men probably said to them¬ 
selves: “ Confound it all! I made a bad mistake! When 
I ought to have been helping him! . . . Now I will get to 
work and think through this new thing called Chris¬ 
tianity! ” 

At the beginning of the Synoptics one knows that Jesus 
is with John the Baptist, but they mention this prepara¬ 
tory period only briefly. “ Now after John was delivered 
up,” (Mark 1:14) makes the life of Jesus begin from that 
point. We know, however, that even before that time 
there was a preparatory period when Jesus was working 
with John the Baptist, and this is written about in the 
Fourth Gospel. 

Next there is the Galilean period. In this Galilean min¬ 
istry also, concerning events that Mark mentions but 
briefly, the Fourth Gospel inserts, from time to time, ac¬ 
counts of round-trips which Jesus made to Jerusalem. In 


50 


Meditations on the Cross 

the first section of the Galilean ministry Jesus is working 
alone, while in the second he is surrounded by the dis¬ 
ciples, and in the third, by the multitude. Next came 
Jesus’ period of retirement, which began with the death 
of John. The Fourth Gospel is not clear about this period, 
but at least one knows from it that there was a reason for 
such a retirement. 

Then comes the period of Perean evangelism, which is 
fully written up in Luke. After that Jesus went to Jeru¬ 
salem. About the Jerusalem happenings, it is the Fourth 
Gospel which goes into most detail. And it records also 
what the other Gospels do not, namely, that Jesus during 
his period of retirement was in Samaria. Therefore, 
though according to the Synoptics the life of Jesus divides 
into five periods — the Preparation, the Galilean, the Re¬ 
tirement, the Perean and the Jerusalem periods — the 
Fourth Gospel has this additional Samaritan material. 

The Fourth Gospel makes Jerusalem the center and 
writes of the adverse tide in the period when the opposi¬ 
tion to Jesus became intense — of the time when the tor¬ 
nado broke against him — up to the time of the Cross. 
The counter-currents of this period are not clearly de¬ 
scribed in the Synoptics but are dramatically set forth in 
the Fourth Gospel. In John 5:18 the Jews came to the 
point of thinking that they would kill Jesus. This 18th 
verse marks the inception of the plan to kill him which 
developed in Jerusalem. 

The situation gradually gets worse until in the sixth 
chapter John the Baptist is killed, and the reader knows 
that there are many who are trying to stir up a revolution. 
The disciples and the multitude get excited and come after 
Jesus to the number of five thousand. Neither Matthew 
nor Mark are clear about what follows, recording merely 
that after John was killed, Jesus retired to the mountains. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 51 

The Fourth Gospel tells the story that a great number of 
people came seeking to stir up a revolution. But Jesus 
taught them not to seek a revolution against Rome, but a 
high type of moral revolution. “ Jesus, seeing they meant 
to come and carry him off to make him king, retired again 
to the hill by himself.” (John 6:15.) 

When the crowd came to him, Jesus said to them, “ The 
thing you fellows are looking for is an independence move¬ 
ment, but my kind of movement is a different thing.” 
Then, too, it would have been a grave mistake to have at¬ 
tempted to start a revolution with only five thousand mus¬ 
tered. In Acts 5:32 it says that revolts had been planned 
more than once before; that Theudas had started one 
which had failed and that later, at the time of the second 
census, (Luke’s second chapter records the first census) 
Judas of Galilee had started one. This was at a time 
when Jesus was about ten years of age. So when Jesus 
came to prominence, the people remembered that earlier 
movement and came together again; but Jesus refused to 
have a revolution by violence, and worked wholly for a 
spiritual movement. Jesus’ movement took four hundred 
years to win through to victory but finally did conquer the 
Roman empire. 

If, at the time of John’s death, Jesus had joined with 
the crowd in a violent revolution, he would probably have 
been unable to conquer the Roman empire. But in the 
time of Leo the First, Rome came under the spiritual con¬ 
trol of Jesus’ movement. At that earlier time, the crowd 
could not understand this. When they knew that Jesus 
would not start a revolution, they exclaimed that such a 
fellow, who lacked love for his country and independence 
of spirit, was worthless, and left him. “ In consequence 
of this many of his disciples drew back and would not go 
about with him any longer.” (John 6:66.) Jesus had 


52 Meditations on the Cross 

said to John and the other disciples, “ Will ye also go 
away? ” Meanwhile the enmity of the crowd toward him 
was growing. 

In the 19th and following verses of the seventh chapter, 
when Jesus says, “ Why are you seeking to kill me? ” the 
reply, “ Thou art possessed of a devil — you are crazy,” 
shows that the reputation of Jesus is growing worse and 
worse. “ That fellow is a half-breed — half Jew, half Sa¬ 
maritan— a betrayer, a traitor to his country! ” The 
style and plan of the writing of the other Gospels exclude 
such materials, but they are naturally central in the dra¬ 
matic composition of the Fourth Gospel. 

There is no mention in the Synoptics, for instance, of 
the incident described from John 7:30 onward; of the 
temple attendants’ being sent to arrest Jesus and of their 
being impressed by his words to the extent of forgetting 
their errand. When they bring back the word recorded in 
verse 46, “ Never man spake as this man,” the Pharisees 
respond, “ Have you fellows also been led astray by that 
creature? ” and at that the seventh chapter of John comes 
to an end, with the man called Nicodemus approving and 
praising Christ. 

In the eighth chapter Jesus is once more speaking at Je¬ 
rusalem. When he says, “ I know that you are descended 
from Abraham, yet you want to kill me because there is 
no room in your hearts for my teaching,” he is speaking 
of the plan to kill him to which he refers also in the 28th 
verse. Thus the purpose to kill Christ is becoming 
stronger, and the discussion at Jerusalem continues into 
the eighth chapter. 

“ You are a Jew, you are possessed of a devil,” they say 
to Christ. And Jesus denies it. And in John 8:58 they 
take up stones to throw at him, and he goes out of the 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 53 

temple. When things get to such a pass, it is not only the 
Pharisees but the people also who are against Jesus. Per¬ 
haps the people’s opposition was because Jesus was too 
pure, too good for them, so that they could no longer feel 
comfortable in doing their business in the old ways. Any¬ 
way, they, too, were finally in a mood to do away with him. 

In the tenth chapter the purpose or conspiracy against 
Jesus is seen more and more clearly: “The Jews again 
picked up stones to stone him with. Jesus answered, ‘ I 
have let you see many good things from the Father. 
Which of them do you mean to stone me for? ’ The Jews 
answered, ‘We are not stoning you for doing anything 
good, but for your impious talk, and because you, a mere 
man, make yourself out to be God.’ ” And once more they 
tried there to arrest Jesus. (John 10:39.) And he with¬ 
drew out of their reach. 

Next, the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meet¬ 
ing of the Sanhedrin, saying they could no longer endure 
this Jesus’ making himself not only a son of God but God 
himself, and officially decided to kill him, on the ground 
that he was a dangerous character, a traitor. (John 11:47- 
53.) Since the seventy members of the Sanhedrin had 
thus decided, Jesus could no longer go abroad freely. 
(John 11:54.) The priests and Pharisees sent out an 
order for anyone who knew the place to which Jesus had 
fled to apprehend him. (John 11:57.) If was as a result 
of this general order that Judas Iscariot had Jesus ar¬ 
rested, probably giving information about him promptly, 
when the placards were put up at the various village cor¬ 
ners. For Judas, of course, knew Jesus’ whereabouts. 
This circumstance is set forth clearly in John’s Gospel, 
but not in the Synoptics. 

In John 12:27 Jesus is sorrowful because the people 


54 Meditations on the Cross 

have finally reached the stage where they want to kill him. 
But having made up his mind that he would come to the 
Cross, he is ready to face the issue. 

Unless we know this atmosphere of Jerusalem, we can¬ 
not clearly understand Jesus. The Fourth Gospel, and 
not the Synoptics, shows us how the plot was developed 
against Jesus, and especially is this true in the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth chapters. 

Through the dramatic portrayal of such circumstances 
in the Fourth Gospel, we can understand how much Jesus 
loved the human race, and how he chose the road of his 
destiny as the Lamb of God. Many critics do not trust 
the Fourth Gospel, but I do. 

John’s death and the revolutionary party 

Jesus was crucified at thirty-three. He began his re- 
ligio-social movement after John’s imprisonment. Up to 
that time he had worked with John, his teacher. He was 
not a revolutionist, but he was a patriot. There were anti- 
taxationists among the revolutionaries who aimed at a 
boycott on tax-paying. They bitterly opposed the taxes, 
saying there was no need of paying them, since “ no mat¬ 
ter how much we pay, it is all carried off to Rome.” That 
party was called the Zealots, or Zelotes in Latin. Even 
among Jesus’ disciples there was one called Simon the 
Zealot. This man was a Leftist of the anti-taxationists. 
And there were likewise among Jesus’ disciples, Rightists, 
such as Matthew, who believed in collecting taxes and had 
himself been a tax-collector. 

Jesus himself was neither Rightist nor Leftist, but be¬ 
lieved in national repentance. Before criticizing our ene¬ 
mies, he urged, let us repent; and whether or not John 
be killed — that is, without starting a bloody revolution 
because of John’s execution — let us have the Kingdom 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 55 

of God Movement. The Ideal Age appears when man’s 
conscience is born again, and God controls the human 
race; this is the Kingdom of God. The fundamental thing 
about the Ideal Age was to be the re-birth of men’s con¬ 
sciences. Jesus had to a wonderful degree the power to 
effect this miracle. Being pure and straight, honest and 
simple, Jesus laid his finger on and clearly pointed to the 
moral need of his day. And he did not merely talk about 
it; he practised it. 

There are such folks today among the working people. 
The laborer who has done the world’s work with his own 
hands, with his own muscles, has a right to speak out 
clearly. Jesus was that sort. Every word that he spoke 
was the fruit of his honest, first-hand experience with the 
hard facts of life. 

Yet though he was poor, he came of a good family. 
Jesus came of the legitimate lineage of King David. And 
moreover, it is a fact that Jesus himself possessed veritably 
extraordinary power. 

But there was John, in the midst of his active career, 
killed! This was the way of it. At that time the King 
still had authority. And John, in the very marketplace 
of Jerusalem, had dared to criticize the King’s adultery. 
He was therefore accused of the crime of Use majesty and 
beheaded. It was in the evening of the King’s birthday. 
His head was given, according to her request, to Salome, 
the daughter of the adulterous woman, as a reward for 
her dancing at the King’s birthday party. 

The people would not stand for that. They were stung 
to the quick. So they planned to start a revolution bear¬ 
ing Jesus upon their shoulders as their king. There were 
many would-be revolutionists in the time of Jesus. But, 
lacking military armaments and war funds, they were 
powerless. When a revolution is hopeless, it is best to 


56 Meditations on the Cross 

start a religious movement. And it is only because Pilate 
killed Jesus that his name is remembered. 

If there are those among us who want to start a revolu¬ 
tion, saying, “ The present situation is terrible; we can’t 
stand it any longer; let’s do something quickly! ” it’s 
all right; let them try — but to start a revolution at a 
time when revolution is hopeless is a foolish performance. 
The best road to real progress is religion. 

How futile is the way of violence is shown by the failure 
of Amakusa Shiro in the rebellion which he started at 
Shimabara* This is a valuable historical example for us 
to turn to when we are hesitating between the starting of 
a revolution by violence, or a moral movement. Jesus 
took more than four hundred years, but finally won out 
over Rome. If we have patience to endure for four hun¬ 
dred years, we shall find that the superstructure of society 
will naturally fall to pieces. Social evolution is really 
like that. Those at the bottom come out on top. 

THE CROSS AND THE LAMB 

When Jesus first appeared, John said, “ This is a great 
personality. You are the Lamb to bear the sins of the 
people.” (John 1:29.) There is a deep meaning in this. 
Some men are awake and some are still dreaming. At 
night we are fast asleep and in the morning we are still 
dozing. When breakfast-time comes, and we begin to 
walk dizzily toward the table, we get fully awake for the 
first time. In a similar way the human race had its semi¬ 
conscious era which we call the age of the prophets. In 

* The Shimabara rebellion, led by Amakusa Shiro, was the effort of 
the Catholic Christians of three hundred years ago to oppose the govern¬ 
ment order for their extinction by violence. Amakusa came from the 
Goto Islands, where even yet Catholic Christianity dating back to that 
early time is in control, and everyone goes to church on Sunday. But 
on the mainland all the Shimabara insurrectionists perished. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 57 

that half-awake age, pondering the question, “ Shall I 
acknowledge my sin and cry for mercy or shall I not? ” 
part of us is still dozing. At such a time, certain forms of 
atonement were fashionable. Though a man ought to 
acknowledge himself in the wrong and ask for pardon, 
he offers a sheep in his place. Later when they awakened 
to the point where they said it must be a man who directly 
offers himself, John pointed to Jesus and declared, “ This 
is the One! ” 

While man still dozes, he does not understand what he 
has done when he kills another human being. During the 
Russo-Japanese war, our soldiers did not think it wrong 
to kill other men. Having shot their man, they would 
drop the matter by saying, “That one died, didn’t he? 
It is nothing strange. It is right.” We do not think it 
wrong to kill people in war. When I say war is wrong, 
people say Kagawa is a dangerous character! And yet it 
was because war is wrong that we wanted to form the 
Peace Pact, and even General Tanaka, while Premier, af¬ 
fixed his seal to it.* So different are our insides and out¬ 
sides that even while we are affixing our national seal to 
Peace Pacts, anyone inside the nation who speaks against 
war we dub a traitor. Apparently Japan’s official peace 
movement is aimed at keeping up appearances in the 
eyes of foreign nations. It is hard to understand our 
national psychology with reference to world peace. It is 
not yet clearly thought out. 

In the ninth century before Christ the Greeks did not 
yet think it wrong to commit murder. This we learn 
from the book, “The Four Seasons of the Grecian Re- 

* General Tanaka was the militaristic Premier who brought about 
the Japanese occupation of Shantung Province in China in 1927, and 
formulated the policy of imperialism in China now being carried out by 
the Japanese fascist minority. 


58 Meditations on the Cross 

ligion.” It appears that when the idea of Apollo pene¬ 
trated the minds of the Greeks they began to think murder 
a crime. Similarly in Japan our Kojiki records the de¬ 
velopment of the idea of evil connected with killing other 
human beings.* It is written that when the Japanese 
began to realize that it was wrong to kill they wanted to 
purify the “six roots of evil,” that is, the senses—the 
ears, eyes, nose, tongue, body and mind. This purification 
was to be accomplished by washing themselves in the river. 

Thus when man’s inner life begins to develop on the 
psychical plane, he awakens from his dreams. At last 
reaching the position assumed by Christ, the generality 
of human beings came to the point of being willing to 
make amends for human blood-shedding. 

But Japan is even yet before the dawn. Disarmament 
movements in Japan amount to nothing. Premier Hama- 
guchi wanted disarmament but encountered the opposition 
of the war department and his movement perished where 
it stood.f It was, moreover, not as enlightened an effort 
for disarmament as we need today. It was only the 
first faint flush of dawn, and even yet the day is only 
beginning in public opinion for disarmament in Japan. 

CHRIST AND MOSES’ SERPENT 

Jesus, however, was thinking of the Whole. When he 
heard that someone had committed a fault, he felt that 
he himself bore a responsibility for doing the wrong. If 
anyone committed suicide because of lack of money, he 
felt identified with the unfortunate. 

* The Kojiki is the first record of ancient Japanese history beginning 
with its mythology. 

t Premier Hamaguchi was in office during the recent disarmament 
conference at Geneva and favored it. There was an attempt upon his 
life by a reactionary which resulted in his death about nine months later. 
The tide turned in the opposite direction. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 59 

This sort of consciousness was strong in him. That 
was his starting point from the very beginning. He 
wanted to make amends to God for human sin; to start 
a movement to re-make the human conscience; to clean 
up this soiled world. He was resolved to be lifted up, as 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. At the 
time of their emancipation from slavery the Hebrews had 
disobeyed God’s command and made miscegenetic mar¬ 
riages with Moabitish women. God told them to stop 
that, but many thousands went ahead and married the 
Moabites and serpents were sent among them as punish¬ 
ment. There was the tradition that at that time there 
was one way only by which they could be saved — to 
repent and look up to a serpent lifted up on a pole. It 
was immediately after John was put in prison that Jesus 
got the idea that he also was to be lifted up like that 
serpent. 

The Righteous One must suffer. Loving others and 
selfishness, do not go together. Money-lending and the 
labor movement just don’t fit into one personality. From 
a selfish point of view, the radical is bad; while from the 
point of view of the radical, the narrow nationalist is 
not good for the country. Thus selfishness and love are 
always in disagreement. To take the loving course of 
action is the right thing, of course, but yet we think it 
wrong to do so. 

When John the Baptist denounced the King’s im¬ 
morality, he was executed. Then Jesus concluded that 
if John had been killed, he also would surely be done 
away with; for he thought, “ John understood and taught 
only a part of the gospel, while I teach it a hundred per¬ 
cent! ” Calling good, good, and evil, evil, Jesus thought 
it was a foregone conclusion that he would be executed. 

From the time of John’s execution, Jesus announced 


60 Meditations on the Cross 

explicitly that he was to be executed. This is clearly set 
forth in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus said that his body 
was to be broken as the Bread of Life for the multitude. 
(John 6:35.) He himself could not commit murder. He 
could not lead the five thousand or the four thousand in 
a revolution. However, the disciples did not understand. 
They were always thinking: “ Jesus is a great man. 
Presently he will become king, and we shall be his cabinet 
ministers.” But then Jesus brought forth this disastrous 
idea that within a short time he would be arrested and 
executed! In John 6:15 the crowd, exasperated at the 
execution of the Baptist, wanted to take Jesus and force 
him to be king. But in John 15:13 Jesus clearly showed 
that he was facing toward his own impending death: 
“ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man should 
lay down his life for his friends.” And a little earlier 
he was talking about a grain of wheat! (John 12:24.) In 
human evolution someone must be pinned under, some¬ 
one must become the foundation. Thus before his cruci¬ 
fixion Jesus gave the farewell cup to his disciples and 
taught them. The Fourth Gospel shows this clearly. 

Also on the other hand, the situation in the government 
is recorded. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus him¬ 
self was partly responsible for the circumstances which 
led to his execution. From the moment that he had 
launched out on his religious revolution, it might have been 
anticipated. The government thought that if it did not 
execute Jesus, the country would come to destruction; 
Jesus himself thought that if he did not die, he would 
be too ashamed of himself to go on: and since it was 
written in the scriptures that unless someone died the 
world’s sin would not be redeemed — these three reasons 
were cumulative. Jesus thinking that he must bear the 
sin of mankind, the government also thinking it best to 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 6i 

do away with him, and the scriptures saying there is no 
salvation without the death of someone — since these 
three causes reinforced each other, Jesus hung on the 
Cross. 


THE GRAIN OF WHEAT TEACHING 

But the multitude do not understand it! They continue 
to think it a very peculiar thing that Jesus should die. 
Neither do the disciples understand it! “That such a 
teacher should die is unthinkable! ” The government, 
however, continues to think the death of such a low 
fellow a desirable thing. 

Whatever the government or the people think of it, 
there emerges a new meaning in the Fourth Gospel for 
this event. It says that this shedding of innocent blood 
means that the human race must awaken from its dream¬ 
ing and become deeply, yea, bloodily, in earnest in con¬ 
fessing and repenting of its sins. This death has been 
according to the scriptures, this Gospel says, and it will 
be understood when interpreted by the Holy Spirit. We 
disciples did not understand Jesus when he was alive, but 
we understand him since his death. As long as we look 
with the eyes of the flesh, we do not understand it. 
(John 14:26.) Many people think that it is all right to 
commit a little evil for the sake of achieving a great good. 
But we prefer to meditate on Jesus’ patience and the 
Cross. As the soul gradually comes to full consciousness, 
the wickedness of murder, or of the use of any violence, 
dawns upon it, and at the same time it grasps the mean¬ 
ing of the great love of Jesus. 

This sacrificial love, giving up one’s own life, surren¬ 
dering everything to God, is like the business of seed¬ 
sowing. The seed has to be buried first, but soon the 
spring time arrives, and it comes out again. So long as 


62 Meditations on the Cross 

the human race is suffering, someone must become a 
sacrifice. Unless we grasp this great truth and expect 
to be sown like the seed, we cannot bring about the 
progress of civilization. 

During a visit to the Kangyo Bank, I was told that 
students sent through school by the sacrifices of older 
sisters or other relatives make very much better records 
than boys whose background is one of luxury. The 
former can, and the latter cannot, be trusted with tens 
of thousands of yen or any amount of money. There 
is the element of sacrifice in the background of those 
who can be trusted. Those who know themselves to be 
worthless, but who feel gratitude and appreciation for 
the sacrifice that Jesus has made for them, are to be 
trusted. 

Since the heart of God mingles with the heart of Jesus, 
and the heart of Jesus with the heart of God, I, too, must 
live a life of sacrifice, in the spirit of Jesus who died for 
the sins of the human race. So long as I am unawakened, 
the Cross of Jesus seems never to have had any existence. 
Nevertheless for nineteen hundred years Jesus has cap¬ 
tured the hearts of men, because he set his seal to the fact 
that his death was a death of redemption. There are 
many biographies of Karl Marx, but the biography of 
Jesus Christ is the one that grips men more. That is 
because, the more we meditate upon it, the more the 
race begins to understand this fully conscious, fully awak¬ 
ened spirit of Jesus. Through imbibing this spirit of 
Jesus, and lifting up our souls to the level of the Cross, 
we become able to kneel in the Presence of God. At this 
point, the evolution of the universe becomes inner and 
spiritual.* 

* This statement should be connected with the line in the intro¬ 
ductory poem on page 6. 


The Cross in the Fourth Gospel 


63 


PRAYER 

Father God: Though we in our unworthy footsteps are 
carelessly and constantly creating sin, and the sins of 
others are even more careless, we are grateful that Jesus 
made amends for us by hanging on the Cross. Forgive 
our sins, both conscious and unconscious, and wash and 
cleanse us through the Blood of Christ. Cause the spirit 
of Christ to fill and permeate us, we beseech Thee. Send 
light into our clouded souls, that we may be enabled to 
lay hold of our responsibility for the sins of Capitalism, 
and take upon ourselves the burden of redeeming the sins 
of capitalistic greed, bolshevistic destructiveness, and 
eroticism. 

Filled with the spirit of Christ, enable us to think seri¬ 
ously of the sins of the world. May the grace of Christ, 
who shed his blood, utterly fill us. We pray through 
Christ. Amen. 


“ In the history of the human race there is needed 
The creation of this Cross-consciousness 
That is to say, the creation of 
The inner life of its very soul.” 

The “evolution of the universe becoming inner and spiritual” means 
much the same thing as “ the creation of the inner life of the very soul ” 
of the human race. 



V 


THE CROSS IN THE THOUGHT OF PAUL 

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach 
the good news — but not with fine language, or the 
cross of Christ might seem an empty thing. For 
to those who are on their way to destruction, the 
story of the cross is nonsense, but to us who are to be 
saved, it means all the power of God. For the scrip¬ 
ture says, “ I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And 
I will thwart the shrewdness of the shrewd.” I Co¬ 
rinthians 1:17-19. (Goodspeed.) 


As it is stated in these words by the Apostle Paul, the 
word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perish¬ 
ing. Moreover, the Jews demand signs and the Greeks 
seek wisdom. The crucified Christ whom Paul was 
preaching seemed to them a mere impertinence. (I Cor. 
2:22-23.) Paul could be patient with them, for he him¬ 
self had formerly misunderstood the whole meaning of 
the life of Christ. To begin with, he had despised him, 
thinking him merely an ordinary person, and so had perse¬ 
cuted the religion which sprang up around him. But as 
soon as Paul understood his error, he repented decisively, 
and adhered to the religion of the Cross. 

Of Paul’s thirteen epistles, the earlier ones do not con¬ 
tain any systematic exposition of the Cross. Just be¬ 
fore writing them, during his first missionary journey, 
he underwent many trials. You might expect, therefore, 
that he would have written more about the Cross in those 
64 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 65 

first epistles, but it is a fact that in I and II Thessalonians 
there is not as much as we might wish. It is when we 
reach Galatians that we begin to find Paul writing of 
the Cross with passionate power: “ Our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who to save us from this present wicked world, gave him¬ 
self for our sins, at the will of our God and Father — to 
him be glory forever. Amen.” (Gal. 1:4-5.) 

Galatians is one of Paul’s earlier letters, and in its first 
chapter we find him giving his witness, it may be with 
the intention of telling his own life-story up to the time 
of his discovery of the Cross of Christ. Verses 4 and 5 
give Paul’s clear conception of Christ. Up to the time 
of his conversion, not knowing the purpose of Christ’s 
coming, Paul had persecuted him, or rather his followers. 
But now Christ had condescended to live within Paul 
himself. And there had been brought to birth within him 
such a faith as that he now could say that he would gladly 
die for the sake of Christ. Thus, this Cross is good news 
of real forgiveness even for such a one as himself — a 
man with a criminal record behind him! He had en¬ 
tered into the assured confidence that he had been for¬ 
given. (Gal. 2:16-21.) 

Paul admits that he has really no right to be alive at 
all. He had put to death the folks who were blabbing 
around about the Christ-superstition! It was, to be sure, 
in ignorance. At the time he had thought it right. He 
himself had not thought it necessary for Christ to die! 

. . . What an impudent thing! . . . for a common car¬ 
penter to presume to die for the sins of others! . . . that 
is the way his mind had run on, formerly. But when 
he drew near to the character of Christ, the carpenter, 
Paul more and more became confident that through the 
death of that common laborer Christ his own sins had 
been forgiven. 


66 


Meditations on the Cross 


That was Paul’s fresh point of departure. Hitherto he 
had been looking at Christ from a purely external, super¬ 
ficial standpoint; therefore he had completely misunder¬ 
stood and opposed him. “ That worthless common fellow, 
that toiler, that proletarian Jesus, a boor who has no 
standing in the world of men whatever; that Jesus, the 
son of a poor low-down father, a carpenter, without any 
education, of a much lower intellectual scale than mine 
— probably he didn’t even know his scriptures! ” That 
is the way Paul thought, and looked down on him with 
contempt, as today we despise the beggars by the road¬ 
side. Paul himself had come of a good family, a wealthy 
one; he had graduated from the university, and more¬ 
over as an honor student! (Gal. 1:14.) 

Nevertheless, the more he thought about the character 
of Christ, the more he realized that the Christ whom 
formerly he had thought contemptible, had not after all 
died wantonly or accidentally, but as a sacrifice for him, for 
Paul himself, to bring him, Paul, into intimate relations 
with God, to attach him to God forever. Paul’s whole 
life was changed, and he found himself in intimate per¬ 
sonal relations with Christ. And the reason why we 
want to become conscious of the truth about the Cross of 
Christ is this same reason, that is, that we may gain per¬ 
sonal relations with Christ. 

THE CROSS OF EXPERIENCE 

It is easy for the average person to grasp the concept 
of God, but not that of the Cross. Many will say, “ Our 
days are different from those of Christ who died nineteen 
hundred years ago. Besides, though he was rather great, 
he was after all nothing but a mere man like ourselves, 
and a carpenter at that — a Jew — at all events a human 
being no different from ourselves. What do you mean 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 67 

by saying that he went through all sorts of suffering for 
all mankind? ” This they say because they do not see 
his inner experience of love. But if in the course of our 
spiritual development we can once get beyond all this 
external appearance, and dwell on how much Christ was 
able to love man no matter how deep in sin, and moreover, 
if we can focus our thoughts on how we ourselves can 
be related to this love of Christ — then that love of 
Christ is reborn in our breasts. 

That is what Paul is saying in the closing part of the 
second chapter of Galatians: a For it is through the law 
that I have become dead to the law, so that I may live 
for God.” (Gal. 2:19.) The law is the moral code. 
From the point of view of God’s moral code, there is not 
one perfect human being. But Christ’s dying for us 
means that “ I have been crucified with Christ, and it is 
no longer I that live; Christ lives within me.” Paul is 
continually repeating this. His view of the Cross, and 
Christ’s view of the Cross, are different. Christ’s cross 
is dying for mankind, absolutely for the other person, 
while Paul is the recipient, the person who is died for. 
Christ’s Cross is the absolute. Paul’s Cross is a Cross of 
receiving. Since Christ purposes to die for men, his cross 
is a brave, courageous one; Paul’s is that of One who died 
for me. In that, Christ’s Christianity and Paul’s Chris¬ 
tianity are different, and the critics know it. 

The first thing that Paul wrote was that he himself had 
been crucified with Christ, and that the life he was now 
living was through the grace of Christ who had died for 
him. As Christ emptied himself, I also am to cast away 
this sinful self. And when self has been extinguished, for 
the first time I return to real living. Paul thinks of the 
Cross-experience as like the shedding of its old chrysalis on 
the part of the butterfly. The larva has to pass through 


68 


Meditations on the Cross 


that stage before it can become a butterfly. And in the 
human realm, unless man passes through that experience 
of the Cross, he does not become a genuine human being. 
Things are simply not right unless, on the Cross, I shed 
my old, empty, outworn shell, and leave it behind. The 
Cross means to be able, once for all, to cast away the 
“ flesh,” to be enabled to nail to the Cross this unworthy, 
limited, and putrefying physical nature of mine. Christ 
did that for me, Paul says. 

I want to think further of this. 

Christ himself does not think of the Cross in this light. 
He does not have the thought of shedding his skin on the 
Cross, but only of fulfilling scripture. But when we get 
to Paul, the Cross-thought becomes the philosophy of the 
serpent! Since Christ died once, Paul has it that we 
also have died, have been executed with Christ on the 
Cross. We are in danger of interpreting this in a mere 
“ spiritual ” sense, to say that Christ’s dying was a spirit¬ 
ual thing, not a matter of the flesh. But Paul takes it 
as a reality. “ This flesh was hung on the Cross.” Christ’s 
being nailed on the Cross was the same as his own dying, 
and so he writes as if he himself had been crucified. This 
experience has not yet filled our breasts, as it had Paul’s. 
Paul had been engaged in the dastardly business of killing 
Christians. That was why he had a deeper, more real, ex¬ 
perience than ours. Christ’s dying was for us. It was 
the same as if Christ had died instead of Paul himself being 
executed as a murderer. He has no right to be alive at 
all, he says. 

In order to attain to this spirit of Paul, we must medi¬ 
tate yet more. Our intuition is not yet like that of Paul. 
Iron will not melt when heated merely with a fire of 
straw or kindling. It melts only at a temperature of 1600 0 
to 2000 0 . It is because the fire of our love for Christ is 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 69 

not yet hot enough that we do not understand. Paul 
said, “ It is no longer I that live but Christ lives within 
me.” This also we do not feel as Paul did. We do not feel 
the grace of Christ as Paul did. Living along in our dull 
way, unconsciously or only semi-consciously, we do not 
sense that “ my being alive is by the grace of Christ.” 

The ancient Samurai had this thought. In classic 
Japanese drama there are many examples of people who 
lived because someone else had died for their sakes. Mod¬ 
ern folks, however, have very little realization of the 
fact that “ my being alive at all is because there has been 
someone else who has died as a substitute for me.” To 
Paul, Christ’s death was a death of vicarious substitution, 
of redemption. Deep in his own heart he knew that Christ 
had died for him. That substitution was not merely 
“ spiritual.” Christ had really taken his place. He was 
a criminal, with no right to be alive at all. This thought 
continues on through Galatians. 

SALVATION THROUGH ONE MAN 

In the next epistle, I Corinthians, the Cross is the main 
subject of the first two chapters. After these there is 
not much about it. It is the same with II Corinthians. 
In this II Corinthians there is still less concerning it than 
in I Corinthians. But when we come to Romans, it is 
almost entirely the meaning of the Cross that Paul was 
thinking of, as in Galatians. And this meaning is more 
fully developed because Paul is now writing after long 
meditation. Although elsewhere I call Romans the Gos¬ 
pel of Grace, yet, from a different aspect, it may also 
be called the philosophical exposition of the Cross. In 
Romans Paul takes up and discusses all the different as¬ 
pects of the philosophical problems connected with the 
Cross. 


70 Meditations on the Cross 

One of these problems is this: although Christ died as a 
redeemer, the days and months have passed by, and one 
wonders whether this one sacrifice of the Christ who died 
as an individual will avail for the many. That is, ap¬ 
praising Christ’s heroic death numerically or quantita¬ 
tively, it just does not seem to fit the situation. No 
matter how great Christ may have been, it does seem 
queer to think that he died for the entire human race. 
Isn’t it impossible for one individual to die for many? 
Thus, it seems, the adequacy of Christ’s redemption had 
become a matter for problematical discussion among the 
brethren. As they reached the point of saying, “ Oh, no! 
really, such a thing would be impossible,” Paul argued for 
it in the epistle to the Romans. (Romans 5:12-21.) 

Paul answers this question by an inverse process of 
reasoning. He explains Christ through the system that 
put evil in circulation in the world. If, he says, through 
one man sin came, if one man’s sin can affect all, in the 
same way if one man redeems, all are redeemed. This, 
he says, is logical in view of the social solidarity of the 
human race. As from one man sin was passed on to 
society, so, if one assumes responsibility for making love 
regnant in society, this love will reach all the people and 
be revealed for the redemption of the whole human race.* 

Paul saw this Cross-redemption idea not only quantita¬ 
tively, however, but also as a deep redemption of the 
whole nature, temperament, and disposition. This is the 

* Responsibility in Kagawa’s usage and to the Japanese in general is 
a very broad term, hard to fully interpret into English, but connected with 
the concept of social solidarity referred to in a previous footnote. Paul 
had this social consciousness of the “ whole family in heaven and on 
earth,” centering up in God, and of his individual responsibility toward 
it. Instead of changing the word here, may we suggest to the reader to 
make a note of it, and secure an interpretation of it through Kagawa’s 
use of the term in later chapters ? 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 71 

thought in Romans six, seven and eight. In chapter six 
there is the same idea as in Galatians (Romans 6:1-6). 
Here Paul is not speaking of skin-shedding; he is think¬ 
ing of it as grafting. We have the Cross lineage. We 
have both bad and good in our heredity. We can be 
brought to the Cross of Christ and grafted upon it: “ For 
if we have been planted together in the likeness of his 
death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” 
(Romans 6:5.) We, like Christ, must die once. Christ 
was executed and we too must bear responsibility. And, 
moreover, we too must die for the sins of the whole of 
humanity. Christ’s death was not a mere death. He had 
to undergo punishment for the crimes of the human race. 
Since Christ underwent that punishment, if I also undergo 
that punishment, I come back to life with a feeling like 
that of the Resurrection. 

Paul saw the Cross as punishment. Christ endured 
punishment, as one who had been guilty of insubordina¬ 
tion to the Roman empire. Though Christ himself had 
committed no sin, yet he suffered punishment, moreover, 
from the God of heaven and earth. And so he died for 
the whole human race. God loves the human race with a 
profound love. If he should punish evildoers, as evil, the 
race would become extinct. Therefore he punished Christ 
alone, and thereafter any who drew near to Christ would 
be forgiven by God. This was Paul’s interpretation of the 
Cross as punishment. It does not appeal to us. We like 
to think only of God’s love and not of the justice of our 
receiving punishment from God. That is because we can¬ 
not acquire Paul’s painful, anguished feeling of responsi¬ 
bility, of deserving punishment from God. 

Paul, since he himself had committed murder, thought 
he ought to be crucified, and that if he were not to be 
crucified, it was because Christ had become a vicarious 


72 Meditations on the Cross 

sacrifice for him and forgiven him. He considered him¬ 
self the chief of sinners, and that Christ had died for 
this chief of sinners, and therefore though he had the 
gift of life now, that life was not for him to use for him¬ 
self. This idea is summed up in the 24th and 25th verses 
of the seventh chapter of Romans: “O wretched man 
that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So 
then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but 
with the flesh the law of sin.” 

THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF HOLY LOVE 

When we come to the eighth chapter of Romans, its 
conception of Christ is not merely the human Christ, but 
Christ as the crystallization of the love of God. It is 
Christ who crystallized, as love, the Spirit which fills the 
universe. Whoever is constrained by the love of Christ 
will transcend his age and natural status, socially, politi¬ 
cally, morally. This is stated in Romans 8:35 ff. 

From the ninth chapter on, Paul takes an historical view 
which shows that the revelation of the love of Christ has 
not been merely sudden or sporadic. God’s love has been 
gradually, and more and more deeply, revealed, until like 
the swelling of a great crescendo in a vast symphony it 
reached its climax in Christ. 

After that, in prison, Paul wrote Philemon, but in this 
epistle the Cross is not directly mentioned. Paul is con¬ 
scious, however, of the process of redemption. To Phile¬ 
mon he writes, “ Brother, you were a slave of sin and 
have been emancipated. Therefore it is your duty to 
emancipate your human slave.” 

In Colossians he writes of the Cross as the profound 
purpose of God. “ In whom we have redemption through 
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:14.) 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 73 

“ And having made peace through the blood of his Cross, 
by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, 
whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” 
(Col. 1:21.) 

Here also there is little difference from the theme of 
Galatians. There is the body of Christ confronting the 
punishment of God; it is through the fact that Christ bore 
our punishment for us that we have been forgiven. That 
was God’s plan, he says. This same sort of thing ap¬ 
pears in Col. 2:3-15: “ And having spoiled principalities 
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing 
over them in it.” (Col. 2:15.) Thus he writes of the 
“ triumph ” of the Cross. For naturally in God’s sight 
we are all deserving of execution, we all deserve to be put 
to death — and the fact that we are alive today is solely 
because the Christ of the Cross is putting forth tre¬ 
mendous efforts for us. 

Paul’s view of the Cross is passive; it is a process of 
being acted upon. “ And we are complete in him, which is 
the head of all principality and power: In whom also ye 
are circumcised with the circumcision made without 
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by 
the circumcision of Christ.” (Col. 2:10-11.) (This 
“ circumcision ” of Christ means the Cross. It is a mysti¬ 
cal skin-shedding of the spirit.) 

Ephesians has in the main the same point of view as 
Colossians, but expresses it in a deeply mystical fashion: 
“ In whom we have our redemption through his blood, the 
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of 
his grace.” (Eph. 1:7.) That this redemption is the 
forgiveness of sins, is many times repeated. In Ephesians 
2:14 it is written that through the Cross, God and man 
are unified. And at the beginning of the fifth chapter is 
written: “ Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and 


74 Meditations on the Cross 

gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God 
for an odor of a sweet smell.” (Eph. 5:2.) 

When we reach Philippians Paul’s thought becomes 
even more mystical, and we know that he is mastered by a 
wonderful emotion. “ It is no longer I that live,” he says. 
“ I am caused to live by Christ.” It is recorded that he 
is caused to live transcendently. Paul is able to live a 
life which has crossed the death line because Christ has 
emptied himself and died on the Cross. (Phil. 2:6-9.) 
Therefore Paul is not talking merely about the Cross that 
brought Christ’s life to an end at thirty-three. He is 
thinking about an extension of the Cross, a Cross which 
existed from before the time of Christ’s birth, which con¬ 
tinued and was prolonged and was revealed at the last at 
thirty-three — a Cross which magnified Christ’s whole life 
— the Cross in Christ’s own definition of it is as a uni¬ 
versal Cross.* 

After that Paul wrote three more letters, in which the 
message about the Cross does not differ much from that 
of Philippians. 

THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE CROSS 

Christ went forward actively to the act of taking the 
Cross upon himself. Paul, on the other hand, takes it that 
he, Paul, is being acted upon by the Cross. Christ died as 
a gift that he was giving to us; Paul’s interpretation of 
the Cross is that Christ died for our sins. This came from 
his strong impression of his own crimes and sins. So 
Christ’s Cross is a very brave and courageous one, while 
Paul’s is a bloody and anguished one. 

Then is there a contradiction between Paul’s Cross and 

* The idea these words “ extension,” “ continued,” “ prolonged,” are 
intended to convey is that of the universal cross mentioned at the close 
of the paragraph, the cross in which we all participate, the cross of Gala¬ 
tians 2:20. This is really the main subject of the book. 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 75 

that of Christ? No! There is no contradiction what¬ 
ever between Christ’s Cross and the Cross of Paul’s hu¬ 
miliation. The more Paul tasted it personally, the more 
he understood that he himself must bear the Cross. His 
life was not his own. It was Christ’s. This is the conclu¬ 
sion to which he was forced. We too must realize that 
Christ has forgiven us and taken punishment for us. 

It was entirely because he held the point of view of God 
that Christ aimed to give the Cross to the human race. 
Starting from God, the Cross is the crystallization of 
love. The fact, unique in the whole world, of Christ’s 
sacrificing himself and shedding the blood of redemption 
for the sins of the race, is the very revelation of Love 
itself. 

Seen from our narrow human viewpoint, this is by no 
means a matter of being spoiled by God’s love. To man, 
fouled by sin, Christ’s death contains punishment as well 
as love. Man is separated from God. His selfish instincts 
easily separate him from God. To kill these on the Cross 
involves a kind of selection, the elimination of the lower in¬ 
stincts by a selective process in favor of higher impulses 
which, from the point of view of selfish man, can be thought 
of as a kind of punishment. But unless these selfish in¬ 
stincts are killed, he cannot reach up toward God. Only 
after he has fully endured punishment can the perfect 
image of man-united-with-God make its appearance in 
him. Thus Paul believes that through Christ’s having 
submitted himself to endure God’s punishment for the 
whole human race, that which is merely human in us hu¬ 
man beings dies, and the Godlike human being emerges. 

Paul thought that for a man to be executed because of 
his own crime was characteristic of the old pattern of the 
sons of Adam. But for a pure personality, unstained by 
crime, to attain to such a consciousness of sacrificial social 


76 Meditations on the Cross 

solidarity as to die gladly a death of redemption for others, 
taking upon himself the full responsibility for the sins of 
the whole human race — for him to rise to such a level 
meant that even while enduring punishment for men, he 
as a man had well-nigh entered the same condition as 
that of God. 

To Paul this was the perfect working of conscience in 
the perfect man — for him, being a perfect person, to 
make confession of and reparation for the crimes of the 
whole human race before God. At that, Paul, fixing his 
eyes on Christ, was conscious that through believing in 
him, his own crimes were entirely forgiven, and that 
through the rebound of Christ’s Spirit into his own heart, 
the life of love, not of the first but of the second Adam, 
was resurrected in him. As in the human body the blood 
circulates and repairs old wounds and even makes the 
wounded place new and perfect again, so Christ, making 
amends for old damages, performs the functions of blood 
circulation for the human race in the new man created by 
his sacrificial death on the Cross. 

Paul’s becoming conscious of this metabolism-through- 
love was a source of joy and thankfulness to him. We 
moderns completely fail to understand this redemptive 
burden-bearing. Modern folks understand only love, and 
do not fathom the fact that Christ put forth his energy 
and struggled to make up for man’s shortcomings in order 
to restore him to his destined perfection. 

This Christ who had thus perfectly made compensation 
had also, Paul believed, been caused to stand before God 
as the perfect pattern of the race and its representative 
man. And Paul was profoundly convinced that as the 
first Adam had been created by God, this Second Adam, 
that is, Christ, was the revelation from God — God’s su¬ 
perlative means of disclosing his love to men. 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 77 

Inspired by this grace, Paul believed that even though 
the Christ of history had left this world, yet, through him 
— that is, through the power of the Holy Spirit — the love 
of God flows in the spirit of man and possesses it. 

PARTICIPATION IN THE CROSS 

His crimes forgiven, Paul believed that through living 
in close association with Christ he had been granted the 
privilege also of participation in Christ’s Cross of suffer¬ 
ing. “ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and 
fill up on my part what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ 
in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church;” he 
says in Col. 1:24. This word, church, is really ecclesia in 
the original. When translated, as in the Japanese, as 
“ kyo-kai,” literally, “ teaching-society,” it seems like an 
extremely narrow and limited club intended for cultural 
purposes only. I am convinced that it ought to be trans¬ 
lated as “ holy society.” To Paul, Christ’s death was for 
the purpose of creating a holy society and moreover this 
continuous and progressive creation of the holy society 
would forever be needing the Cross type of love. The 
Christ who came revealed in human form had left the 
world; had left it for the sake of revealing that Cross- 
Love. But Paul felt that he himself, who had also in a 
small way travailed in the birth of the Cross-love, had be¬ 
come a participator in it, a second Christ, and that he must 
needs participate in this movement of Love-through- 
suffering. 

Almost the same thought can be discovered in the epistle 
to the Philippians to which he addressed his pen some time 
after writing to the Colossians. In Phil. 1:29, he says, 
“ Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of 
Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer in his 
behalf.” Here Paul is meditating on suffering as a bless- 


78 Meditations on the Cross 

ing. Paul thought the inheritance of the Cross to be a 
blessing. Brought to new life through it, Paul was aware 
that he himself must bear the Cross in his turn for others. 
He who has been redeemed by blood must carry on this 
work of the Cross. The Christ-love must forever go on 
rescuing humanity from its crimes and misery, must not 
stint its sacrifices until the last human tear has been 
wiped away. Paul was completely mastered by the spirit 
of Christ. 

Thus Christ’s Gospel and Paul’s Gospel do not con¬ 
tradict each other, as some German theologians errone¬ 
ously suppose. It is through Paul that Christ’s love first 
comes fully to consciousness; this I have discovered. Of 
course, as I said before, it will never do to forget that 
while Christ was animated by active redeeming love to 
the uttermost, Paul passively gave thanks for and ac¬ 
cepted this redeeming love as grace revealed through 
Christ, and with confession and gratitude gave thanks to 
God and Christ that his sins had been forgiven. 

Only those who are conscious of the Whole realize their 
responsibility for the Whole. Unless one enters into con¬ 
sciousness of the Whole, a consciousness like that of God, 
one would not have redemptive consciousness which de¬ 
pends upon a sense of responsibility for the past. Such 
an era of rampant individualism as the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries would naturally be the last to com¬ 
prehend Christ’s redeeming love as Paul did. The more 
Paul felt shame for his former treason against God, the 
more he felt the value of Christ’s blood which had flowed 
on the Cross. 

PRAYER 

Father God: We are filled with deep joy to know that 
Christ died for us, though we do not comprehend that 


The Cross in the Thought of Paul 79 

solemn historical fact, and, no matter how much we think 
about it, we cannot exhaust the meaning of that deep 
Providence — that from the one man, Christ, came re¬ 
demption for the whole human race, and power for cleans¬ 
ing from the nailing to the Cross of this One. Even when 
we fail, cause us to reverence and look up to Christ and 
lead us one by one to cleansing in the blood of the Cross. 
We pray through Christ. Amen. 


VI 


THE CROSS AS REVEALED IN PAUL’S 
PARABLES 

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
God through the death of his Son, much more, being 
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Romans 
5:10. 


We do not realize that the Cross is the center of Chris¬ 
tianity. We are likely to go only so far as to think that 
Christ’s sacrifice makes a deep impression upon men, and 
is therefore precious, and that Christ is an ideal person¬ 
ality. The bloody agony which renounced life itself does 
not come home to our hearts. This is because our way of 
thinking of sin is not as deep as Christ’s. If we are living 
a fairly good life, we are satisfied and have no thought of 
assuming responsibility for the sins of others. We are too 
content with living from day to day. 

But merely not to do evil is to be no different from the 
stones in the roadway. Better to be a block of wood than 
to be self-complacent at taking care of self alone! If we 
are merely avoiding sin, we do not need redemption. But 
when once we get to feeling, as God does, a responsibility 
for the sins of the whole human race, we cannot remain in 
idleness. Idleness and indifference in the face of this sin¬ 
ful world are in themselves sins. It is a sin to seek escape 
from the turmoil of the world by flight to the mountains. 

Among the parables of Christ there is the one about the 

80 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 8 i 

talents. The men-servants who had been entrusted with 
the five and with the two talents set the money to work 
and gained double, but the one talent man simply put 
away what had been entrusted to him. When their master 
returned, he reproved this servant for not setting his 
money to work, and said, “ If that was all you were going 
to do with it, why did you not at the very least put my 
money into a bank? ” And then, “ Give your talent to the 
five-talent man.” Thus Christ taught that merely to do 
nothing is unpardonable. 

My conscience pricks me when I am doing nothing, 
even when forced to rest by illness. I think to myself in 
shame that while there are many sick people who do a 
great work by writing letters, I am merely concerned with 
curing my own sickness! When you are contented with 
a small life and a small measure of success, when you are 
content with selfish, individualistic gratification you do 
not really need redemption. When we are content with 
such a selfish life, we cannot possibly understand how 
much Christ suffered for the salvation of the race. 

Christ thought of sin as God does. Paul also examined 
himself, with a profound consciousness of his sin, and 
said: “ Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all accepta¬ 
tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; 
of whom I am chief.” I am the captain of all criminals, 
he is saying remorsefully. But had he committed some 
great crime? He had not committed adultery. He had 
not stolen. He had not killed anyone with his own hands. 
Nevertheless he examined himself, and because he had 
been enlightened by God, he had a deep consciousness 
of sin. 

Paul was rather better than the average Jew. But com¬ 
pared to God, compared to Christ, he had lived below the 
right standard. Moreover, even considering his education 


82 


Meditations on the Cross 


and ancestry, he knew he ought to have done better. So he 
thought of himself as the chief of sinners; for when Christ 
had done so much for the human race, he, Paul, had mis¬ 
interpreted it, and had rejoiced in the killing of Christ’s 
disciples. He was terribly ashamed of this. To be sure 
he had been ignorant, and so might reasonably have been 
forgiven. But when he examined himself, when he laid 
bare his faults, he realized that he must repent before God. 

People today have a very dull sense of sin. When they 
are brought to account for their own failures, they blame 
their circumstances in life, the economic system, or some¬ 
thing else, and do not admit any responsibility themselves. 
Their ideas of the Atonement are hazy. But anyone who, 
like Paul, has thought seriously about his sins, cannot 
get along without someone like Christ to lovingly for¬ 
give them. 

Paul’s view of redemption 

Paul thinks seven things about sin. Carelessly glanced 
at these may seem hard to understand, but even a little 
application of thought to them brings out the clear mean¬ 
ing of Christ’s Atonement.* 

i. First of all, Paul thought that sin is opposed to life. 

* “ In a brief but delightful conversation with Kagawa, I asked him 
what he really thought about the atonement; did he hold the substitu¬ 
tionary theory ? With his characteristic eagerness and facility, he replied, 

‘ I think just as Paul did. Paul felt that there was something wrong with 
man, and Christ could set him right. When Paul tried to say what was 
wrong with man, he used seven parables. Now it was a debtor whose 
debts must be paid; again a condemned criminal to be reprieved; or a 
burdened traveler to be relieved; a sick man to be healed; a dead man 
to be raised; a slave to be emancipated, or a wandering child to be 
brought home. But ’ he said, with his face aglow, ‘ Paul didn’t care which 
parable you used, or if you used some other. All he cared about was 
that man was somehow wrong and Christ could set him right.’ ” (William 
Pierson Merrill, in Scribner’s Magazine, reprinted in The Christian, De¬ 
cember 23, 1933.) 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 83 

“ What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof 
ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 
But now being made free from sin and become servants 
to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end 
eternal life. For the wages of sin is death; but the free 
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
(Romans 6:21-23.) In teaching this, Paul taught that 
the result of sin is death. He thought that sin is the very 
opposite of life. People today think that a moderate 
amount of sinning will not affect their lives, that sin and 
life are two different matters. But the result of such sin¬ 
ning leads to death! The individual, or the society, that 
indulges in sin, is on its way to death. A nation which 
kills other people, and thus sows hatred and enmity, will 
come to destruction as a result of its national wild oats. 

2. Next, sin is a schism, a conflict, it is disintegration. 
This is taught in the middle of the second chapter of the 
Ephesian epistle. If my spirit is disintegrated, divided, 
it is therefore distracted, and deranged. And if society 
is schismatic, and divided, it is thereby destroyed. Sin 
causes the disunion of individual personality and the 
break-up of society. Through sin, any harmony between 
instincts and consciousness becomes unobtainable. 
Thinking of this, Paul cried, in Romans 7:24: “Wretched 
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death? ” 

3. Again, he thinks of sin as loss, in the sense of failure 
in business. In the eighth chapter of Romans he says 
that he is ashamed because we are living an insufficient 
life, full of contradictions. That is, sin is atrophy, a 
phenomenon of degeneracy, leading to ruin, wreck, col¬ 
lapse, downfall. 

4. Next, sin is straying away from the pathway. Sep¬ 
arated from God’s purpose, unable to do the good he 


84 Meditations on the Cross 

wants to do, having perforce to do the evil he does not 
want to do, man is in agony. 

5. Again, sin is being outside the law. Having been 
given the aim of becoming a child of God, he becomes in¬ 
stead a son of anger, a son of cursing— that is sin! This 
is taught in the fifth and sixth chapters of Romans. 

Thus sin is opposed to life. Paul realized poignantly 
that he was a divided personality, outside the law, that he 
was missing the mark. 

THE PARABLE OF BLOOD 

The Cross is therefore explained in suitable parables as 
power to redeem from sin. Paul thought of blood as that 
which revives life from sin, which opposes life. Blood is 
the source of physical life. “ For scarcely for a righteous 
man will one die: for peradventure for a good man some 
one would even dare to die.” (Romans 5:7.) “ Where¬ 
fore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the 
Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body 
and the blood of the Lord.” ( I Corinthians 11:27.) Be¬ 
sides these verses, in many other places in Paul’s writings, 
Christ’s blood is the phrase most commonly used. 

But to get God to save from past sin means not merely 
getting physical blood to work. Mere physical blood can¬ 
not save from sin, which is spiritual. It is not because 
blood flows that past sins are redeemed. What this means 
is that Christ has given the power of life through love, 
of life which is conveyed by the blood. The blood, with 
its power of metabolism repairs the damages in the body. 
It restores the broken form and can even bring new life 
into that which is no longer able to work. Love is also 
like that. If you love people you can bring new life into 
the broken form. 

Christ’s loving men was not merely with the lips. He 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 85 

loved them to the extent of shedding his blood. This 
shedding of this blood was the culmination of his love. So 
although blood was used primarily as a parable, it gets to 
be that the blood itself saves. John explains blood as 
having a mystical power. Blood cleanses away the filth 
of the body. Gathering it all together, it carries it to the 
heart, and then on to the lungs, and there purifies it with 
oxygen. Thus “ the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us 
from all sin.” The love of Christ itself engulfs all the filth 
and washes it away! What precious blood this is! Paul 
gave thanks, because he had experienced that through it 
we are saved from all our sins. 

THE PARABLE OF THE ARMY 

Next, Paul sees the Cross as the means of breaking 
down the stone walls of ill will between people. He shows 
two opposing forces which had come into conflict brought 
into one. “ For he is our peace, who hath made both one, 
and brake down the middle wall of partition, having 
abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of command¬ 
ments contained in ordinances; that he might create of the 
two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile 
them both in one body unto God through the Cross, having 
slain the enmity thereby.” (Eph. 2:14-16.) 

Maeterlinck once said, there are two “ horns ” in the 
world, which have been fighting each other since the dawn 
of history and will be embroiling the peoples of Europe in 
killing each other to the end of time. These are the 
Teutons and the Gauls. A certain Japanese Lutheran 
pastor, who studied in Germany during the world war, 
lamented that during that whole time he did not once hear 
a sermon on the text, “ Love your enemies.” Ill will is 
indeed a fearful thing. Resentment causes people to op¬ 
pose each other with terrible antagonism. Greece and 


86 


Meditations on the Cross 


Rome fought each other and both were destroyed. If 
you or your nation fight too much you too will be annihi¬ 
lated. 

On the other hand, in South America, Argentina and 
Chile, though they fought for a long time, at length made 
peace, and a covenant to help one another, and placed a 
great figure of Christ on the boundary between them, on 
top of the Andes mountains. One arm is lifted in blessing 
Argentina and one is blessing Chile. Thus Christ counter¬ 
acts the antagonism between two opposing powers. It 
would be like the Genji and Heike * clasping hands to 
work together for Japan. 

In Christ’s parable, Beelzebub’s fighting against himself 
is a bad business — he will fall. Sin is fighting against 
God, it is division of the personality. God and man can 
be reconciled through Christ. Whether the home or the 
nation, both are unified through the emergence of love. 
When man and God were fighting one another, through 
the appearance of Christ they were reconciled. Through 
the love of Christ, God’s love was revealed as wanting to 
save man, and man got into the mood of wanting to return 
to God. Through the Cross of Christ the two, hitherto 
divided, were united, as Paul explains. 

THE PARABLE OF LOSS 

Third, Paul says that redemption is the work of making 
up for loss. He illustrates it by the blood-circulation with 
its action of metabolism. There are those who say that 
because God is love, he could not allow punishment. But 
that is too easy. It is like saying that because God is love, 
that when you put water into a bag with a hole in it, that 
the hole in the bag won’t matter! You must close up the 

* The Genji and Heike were opposing clans who fought to the death 
for supremacy in what has been called the “ Japanese Wars of the Roses.” 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 87 

hole! Unless you fill up the hole, the bag won’t hold 
water, and your heart cannot receive the love of God. 
You can’t reveal the glory of God, if you have a hole in 
your bag, no matter how much of God’s glory you receive. 
It is Christ who fills up that egregious hole. 

The blood circulation has the power to heal wounds. 
My child once got a bad bruise on his nose at a friend’s 
house. I was anxious as to whether it would ever heal 
up, but while I was worrying about it, the blood cured it 
and made the nose-form as it had been before. I thought 
it marvelous. Crabs are like that. If one of the claws of 
a crab is torn off, the next year a new claw is sure to 
grow. A pig’s hindparts if cut off will grow again fat and 
round. 

Love creates the same pattern anew. It redeems the 
place that was lost. To the measure of its depth, the love 
of God can perfectly heal the holes of the past, and all its 
sins. It does not merely repair the damages of sin, but 
even transforms that which has been broken into perfect 
health, perfect working capacity. Peter’s life illustrates 
that. Many times he failed and tore holes in his bag of 
life. Through Christ his holes were filled up, and he even 
attained to starting a great religious movement. Through 
Christ men see for the first time in history a perfect per¬ 
sonality, and through Christ, men’s sins are all redeemed. 

For a personality as great as Christ to be revealed in 
the world gives meaning to the existence of the great multi¬ 
tude of human beings, loaded with imperfections as we are. 

There are not lacking those to say that for the love of 
the one man, Christ, to redeem the sins of billions of others 
is incomprehensible. But in Romans 5:17, Paul says: 
“ If one man’s offense made death reign through that one 
man, all the more will those who receive God’s overflow¬ 
ing mercy and his gift of righteousness live and reign 


88 Meditations on the Cross 

through the one individual Jesus Christ.” One is enough. 
By the sin of one, billions have been made sinners, and 
now salvation for all comes through one great personality. 
But this doctrine is unintelligible from the materialistic 
point of view — from the numerical standpoint — whether 
of algebra, arithmetic or geometry. Considered psycho¬ 
logically, as a spiritual matter, it can be grasped. As the 
degeneracy of one man spread to all peoples, all are saved 
through the salvation vouchsafed by One. Since we are 
dealing in terms of love, the numerical demands of God’s 
algebra can all be satisfied through the love of One man. 
Through the appearance of a person like Christ, God is 
satisfied. Christ is the summit of evolution; and so when 
the one perfect One, Christ, is revealed, all the disap¬ 
pointments of the past are redeemed. 

Next is the phenomenon of degeneration. “ If the first 
handful of dough is consecrated, the whole mass is, and if 
the root of a tree is consecrated, so are its branches. If 
some of the branches have been broken off, and you who 
were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, in place 
of them, and made to share in the richness of the olive’s 
root, you must not look down upon the branches. If you 
do, remember that you do not support the root; the root 
supports you.” (Romans 11:16-18.) Paul is illustrat¬ 
ing his theme with reference to the process of grafting. 
Paul seems to have known intimately this business of 
grafting. In Kishu province I have heard a saying: “ If 
the root is good, even the fruit is changed through it.” If 
a Japanese tangerine be grafted onto a Bengal quince root, 
the root will influence the tangerine tree and make it a 
quince. This was the thing that Paul was speaking of. 
Ordinarily we think the root of no account and that it is 
the fruit alone which is important. 

Great energy is released in the tree when it is grafted. 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 89 

Even though it may be so old as to be decrepit, a plum 
tree with a new branch grafted on becomes much stronger. 
In Ika there are many famous old plum trees, from one 
hundred to three hundred years old, and even those which 
have been reduced to nothing but bark and branches, 
when grafted, are astonishingly strengthened. When 
lilies are cross-fertilized sometimes their strength comes 
back completely. Even when we are completely ex¬ 
hausted, if we become joined to Christ, power arises in a 
wonderful way from within us. When we keep ourselves 
on the strong foundation which is Christ, life overflows 
within us. Energy steadily arises in even such feeble 
creatures as we are when we lay hold of Christ. That 
which I felt I could not possibly accomplish turns out 
very well. Shrewd and selfish people, when they receive 
Christ’s spirit, get to living unselfish loving lives. 

THE PARABLE OF THE GO-BETWEEN 

We ourselves so often fail to choose definitely between 
good and evil. Undecided between God and man, we do 
not cling to God very well, nor yet to man, and so come to 
our wits’ end with indecision. Speaking of this dilemma, 
Paul said, “ Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death! ” But through the Cross 
of Christ we can return to the righteous path: “ We 
actually glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, to 
whom we owe our reconciliation.” (Romans 5:11.) 
“ Through your union with Christ you who were once so 
far away have through the blood of Christ been brought 
near.” (Ephesians 2:13.) 

Through Christ we come near to God. Christ is our go- 
between. “ I don’t need a Christ. It is quite possible for 
me to come to God directly,” says someone. To such a 
one I would say, “ You may think that an evidence of your 


90 Meditations on the Cross 

superiority; but when the essence of love becomes a lit¬ 
tle clearer to you, you will understand that one enters 
into fellowship blessing for the first time through a medi¬ 
ator.” 

People who are steeped in the thought of the nineteenth 
and twentieth centuries are not fond of this idea of a 
mediator. They deny the religion that places a mediator 
between themselves and God. But in the world of human 
beings, love has developed gradually. Because of all sorts 
of obstacles it has not evolved as it should. We are not 
able to oppose sin completely. Through the man who has 
really experienced God’s love, love is being perfected. 
The facts of history teach us that men have to place some¬ 
thing between themselves and God in order to be able to 
reach up to him. It is well to make Christ our guide to 
God. It is necessary to have a go-between for love. Even 
children, when they want something, do not ask their 
father directly, but ask through their mother or a friend. 
In personal relationships, it most often makes for good 
relationships for someone to stand between. It is so in 
marriage. And at the time of the Russo-Japanese war, it 
was when Roosevelt stepped in between Japan and Russia 
that the settlement was reached. When a go-between is 
established, things are carried along smoothly in a won¬ 
derful way. 

Even in the realm of animals and plants there are many 
go-betweens. Parasites enter the human body through 
fishes. This is the law of the universe. We do not go to 
God directly but through Christ. We pray through 
Christ, but that does not refer merely to the Christ who 
died nineteen hundred years ago. It means that we pray 
believing in the love of God as revealed in Christ. A 
mediator is necessary for conciliation to occur in a labor 
strike. And for both sides to be willing to make conces- 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 91 

sions it is absolutely necessary to have the standard of 
love. Christ is the conciliator between God and man. 

Through offering his body, Christ annulled the law, and 
acquitted us of the charges against us. This is a sublime 
idea, excellently depicted in the fifth, sixth and seventh 
chapters of Romans. Christ nailed selfishness to the 
Cross. The source of selfishness is instincts gone astray, 
and the cause of such derailment of the instincts is in the 
flesh. Christ crucified that flesh and nailed to the Cross 
all the sins of the human race. 

Paul was penitent before God. He had held Christ in 
contempt, had arrested Christ’s disciples, and had en¬ 
joyed the spectacle of the death of Stephen. All this was 
unpardonable — but Christ’s death was a death to save 
him. So similarly the whole human race could be ac¬ 
quitted from its sins. 

“ What’s this idiotic thing you are saying? It’s un¬ 
thinkable! ” some of you may exclaim. But if you read 
the Bible you will understand it very well. 

Christ could have escaped the Cross had he wanted to. 
So it is evident that he purposely chose the Cross. The 
Old Testament teaches that the Righteous One must 
surely die and that through this vicarious substitution, 
others will be acquitted. Christ believed that, and died 
in this spirit of the Old Testament. Moreover, if this had 
been attempted by an ordinary human being, it might 
have had no great effect. But since Christ was a person 
with a deep consciousness like that of God, since he died 
feeling the responsibility for the whole human race, this 
death becomes effective for all mankind. 

There are many interesting traditions of vicarious sub¬ 
stitution in the popular tales of the Tokugawa period, 
“ The Rise and Fall of the Gempei.” Christ died not for 
one person, however, but believing that he was dying for 


9 2 Meditations on the Cross 

the whole human race. So God, out of consideration for 
that profound and lofty consciousness, does indeed forgive 
the whole human race. Through the broad love of Flor¬ 
ence Nightingale the Red Cross movement began and the 
lives of a great number of pitifully wounded soldiers have 
been saved. Christ's consciousness of deep love has 
worked and become redemptive for the whole human 
race. To those who believe this, Christ’s Cross is indeed 
the guarantee of the love of God. “ For to those who are 
on their way to destruction, the story of the Cross is non¬ 
sense, but to us who are to be saved, it means all the power 
of God.” (I Corinthians 1:18.) 

THE PARABLE OF ADOPTION 

Lastly, Paul explains that Christ’s redemption makes 
sinners the adopted sons of God, God’s heirs. Together 
with Christ we are made sons. If sons, then heirs. 

Heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.” (Romans 
8 :i 7.) The purpose of man’s life is to become an in¬ 
heritor or successor to God. Because Christ accepted and 
adopted us sinners, though deep in our sins, we are re¬ 
deemed and made God’s sons. This was the final con¬ 
clusion. This became possible through the love of Christ. 
From whatever obscure origin a foundling may come, 
he is an heir of God. Suppose a messenger should come 
from the Iwasaki family with the word that you were to 
be made its heir! But we can become heirs of God, who 
owns the universe! The universe is said to have thirty 
billion stars around the sun, and about twenty billion of 
these in the Milky Way. The immensity of this starry 
universe is the measure of the love of Christ. 

Blood makes one bright and blooming, fresh and youth¬ 
ful. Christ’s blood makes us new again. It made the 
prodigal son over into an heir of God. 


The Cross as Revealed in Paul’s Parables 93 

Thus Paul uses parables to set forth his meaning. Start¬ 
ing from the parable of sin as crime leading to death, he 
next explains the soul’s struggle using the illustration of 
military strife between opposing forces; then speaks of 
the redemption needed after commercial losses; or else 
the gardener’s work of grafting; then sets forth the work 
of the priest as go-between or mediator; the next step 
is the sinner’s being declared “ not guilty ” before the 
law; and last of all, he uses the parable of adoption as a 
son into the family. This ascending series of illustrations 
fits the fundamental values of Life — Power, Change, 
Growth, Selection, Law and Aim or Purpose. Borrowing 
the typical phenomena of many aspects of human so¬ 
ciety — the courts of justice, the military service, business, 
agriculture, the temple and the family — Paul associates 
them all in a statement of the process which saves all 
through love. He shows how God is blessing the believer 
through all the manifold pathways of his life. The reality 
of the love of Christ redeems the past, the present, and 
the future. 


PRAYER 

Father God: We thank Thee that Thou didst vouch¬ 
safe the precious Cross of Christ for our redemption. We 
are too likely to forget Thy limitless love, to cower be¬ 
cause of our weakness, to think merely of the past. En¬ 
able us to be more clearly assured of the Redemption of 
the Cross and thereby more filled with energy for loving 
service. To this end, that we may be more clearly shown 
the meaning of the Cross, we pray humbly through Christ. 
Amen. 


vn 


THE CROSS AS TRUTH 

To sum up all things in Christ, the things in the 
heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, I 
say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having 
been foreordained according to the purpose of him 
who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; 
to the end that we should be unto the praise of his 
glory, we who had before hoped in Christ: in whom 
ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the 
gospel of your salvation — in whom, having also 
believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
promise. Ephesians 1:10-13. 


The Cross is the secret of Christianity. The truth of the 
Cross fascinates the hearts of men, says Paul. He in¬ 
sisted that though it might seem to be a seductive teach¬ 
ing, yet it is really the truth. It was the Greeks’ calling 
the Cross a piece of superstition that led to this emphasis 
on his part. Today, too, there are those who ask, “ Where 
is the truth in the Cross? ” 

There are many types of truth — natural truth, physio¬ 
logical truth, psychological truth, and rational truth. The 
electric light glows, a book falls to the floor — these are 
instances of natural law, or truth. Flowers bloom in 
order that plant life may develop; this is fulfilment of 
purpose. There is truth in a clock telling the time. In 
the case of certain machines, natural truth gives way to 
94 


The Cross as Truth 95 

a higher type of truth. A clock, made according to the 
laws of physics, and therefore demonstrating the truth of 
physics, becomes also an instrument for measuring time 
and thus illustrates a higher type of truth. Our bodies 
exist as a result of many scientific modifications, and re¬ 
veal physiological truth in that they sustain life; but at 
the same time they also demonstrate psychological truth. 
In all natural law we discover truth, for it is everywhere, 
in the soil, and in the beauty all about us. 

The whole universe is divine. Its perfection lies in that 
it is ever advancing along one path. This is the meaning 
in Christ’s words, “ I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life.” Paul says Christ is the Head of the universe. 
(Colossians 1:18.) This means the perfection of the uni¬ 
verse. He is the Head of a Divine Social Order. The 
human race cannot produce a fitting social order without 
the appearance of perfect personalities like that of Christ. 
If we regard Christ as the Head of such an order, love 
becomes an essential in the building of that order and 
sacrifice is the necessary foundation of love. The Cross 
is sacrifice made thoroughly conscious, and willed at every 
point. Therefore, though the Cross may seem to be false, 
yet it exists for the fulfilment of the universe. 

The Cross completes the truth of natural law. If the 
universe is to be brought to perfection, mankind must be 
perfected; and in order to bring mankind to perfection, 
it is necessary to perfect love. In order to bring love to 
perfection, we must bring the Cross to perfection. It is 
not foolish to make the Cross our symbol. We find pro¬ 
found meaning in the words of Paul in Colossians: “ For 
it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should 
all the fulness dwell, through the blood of his cross.” 
(Colossians 1:19-20.) What, then, is the meaning of the 
blood of the Cross? 


g6 


Meditations on the Cross 


THE SEVEN BASIC ELEMENTS OF TRUTH 

We find seven essential elements in the truth of the 
Cross. In the first place, the Cross restores life by re¬ 
deeming or making amends for sin. In order to give life, 
it is necessary to give the blood, which is the foundation of 
life. We can say that blood brings recovery to life, be¬ 
cause life is supported or sustained by blood. 

The second point is power. The powers of darkness 
have made sinners their slaves, and we must wrest them 
out of the hands of these powers through the power of 
Christ. 

The third point is change, or transformation. We must 
lead men out of confusion back into the straight way. 
There are times when we are perplexed, and there are 
times when we see our way clearly. There are times when 
we would go straight to our goal, yet we do not see the 
way. 

The fourth point is growth, or development. Although 
man is facing God, yet mankind is not stretching up on 
tiptoes in his effort to grow up to God. All the time one 
should be becoming more and more like God, yet one 
stops short on the way. Thus sin is arrested development. 
It was for this reason that God allowed Christ to die, just 
as a grain of wheat, when planted, is left to die. By be¬ 
coming a seed, and dying for the sake of the entire human 
race, he bears fruit a hundred and a thousand-fold. This 
method of sacrifice by death is the only true way of prog¬ 
ress. 

The fifth point is selection, or cleansing. The crippled, 
and those who were considered to be of no account — these 
were the ones Christ called to him. In one of his parables 
Christ tells us how, when a banquet was to be given, the 
host first thought he would invite the best people, but 


The Cross as Truth 


97 

when they would not come, he gave orders to bid those 
who were counted the most worthless folk in the world. 
We would be apt to invite only the learned, the upper 
classes, those of position and fame, but Christ did not 
look at it that way. Christ does not call the perfect; he 
calls those who are imperfect. “ They that are whole 
have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I 
came not to call the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 
9:12-13.) Those in the church are those who realize they 
are “ sick.” Christ chooses these imperfect people in or¬ 
der that he may make them perfect. 

The sixth point is law. That is, the sinner is to be saved 
through the truth. The seventh point is purpose; that is, 
the redemptive purpose of God, shown in the bringing 
back of the prodigal son. 

Christ used many parables but these seven essential 
elements are to be found in any one of them. The reason 
that we do not understand the Cross is because we do not 
grasp these points. When we analyze the Cross as the 
foundation principle of life, we discover these seven 
points, and we can easily grasp the meaning of the various 
parables and figures of speech which Christ uses when we 
apply this analysis to them. In this way the ideas of 
Christ and of Paul become clear and intelligible to us. 

Paul, in explaining the Cross, used a figure of speech 
which would attract the attention of merchants. He 
likened the transformation of Christian conversion to 
the process of barter and explained that redemption was 
one of the underlying principles of barter or exchange. He 
talks of buying back something which you have sold. At 
another time he uses the figure of a peace being declared 
between armies which have been fighting each other on the 
field of battle. Again he uses the figure of a person act¬ 
ing as a mediator for those who have been dragged into 


98 Meditations on the Cross 

court. Again he uses the illustration of the priest offering 
sacrifices in the temple, and likens the suffering of Christ 
on the cross to this rite. Thus Paul uses figures of speech 
drawn from all walks of life. 

There must be a transformation in the human soul as 
it progresses along the path from being a man to becom¬ 
ing a God. It requires strength to become a child of God. 
It becomes essential to choose one’s path. Life consists in 
making these choices; one develops by choosing. Christ 
satisfies the hungry soul, saves the sinner, and redeems. 
Paul uses the term “ righteousness ” to describe this 
change. From the standpoint of the law, it is necessary to 
clear the offender of guilt. In order to make men his own 
children, God calls them out, chooses them, and makes 
them his heirs, “ meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light.” (Corinthians 1:12.) God, in 
order to make us into his children has to make us grow, 
little by little, and he makes us develop by redeeming us 
by his blood and clearing us of guilt. 

THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE CROSS 

We must now consider the blood of Christ, that is, the 
Cross, as the principle of truth. We must think of the 
blood of the Cross as salvation. Christ was continually 
referring to blood in his teaching. At the Last Supper he 
said, “ This is my blood of the covenant,” and taking the 
bread in his hands, “ This is my body.” Blood and bread 
are elements which sustain life. Jesus said, “ Greater love 
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for 
his friends.” (John 15:13.) Long before he spoke these 
words, Jesus had been pondering the thought of offering 
his blood and of rending his flesh for the sake of giving 
life. These words did not fall from Jesus’ lips as a sudden 
unpremeditated utterance. 


The Cross as Truth 


99 


From the very beginning of his public ministry of three 
years, Christ used the figure of blood in his teaching. 
Perhaps the words of John the Baptist, “ The Lamb that 
beareth the sins of the world/’ had sunk deeply into his 
mind. In any case, we find this idea appearing even in the 
Sermon on the Mount. He tells his hearers, “ You will 
certainly have to sacrifice yourselves; you will have to 
suffer.” He speaks of the day when the bridegroom will 
be taken from among them; by this he meant the Cross. 
Although in some ways Christ was like a bridegroom, 
splendid and brilliant, yet beneath the surface there was 
loneliness. When Christ said that a greater event would 
take place than any which had happened in the time of 
Jonah, he meant the Cross. Over and over again Christ 
alluded to the Cross. From the time that John the Bap¬ 
tist was killed, he declared clearly that he would be sen¬ 
tenced to death, and finally die upon the Cross. 

From the very first, therefore, Christ was conscious of 
the Cross. Strange as it may seem to us, the path which 
Christ was to tread was clearly revealed in the Scriptures. 
Christ believed and accepted all that is thus revealed in 
the holy writings, and often reasoned with his disciples 
in some such words as these: “Haven’t you read the 
teachings? Isn’t it written in the Scriptures that right¬ 
eous men must inevitably suffer and those who are the 
saviors of the people are, without exception, put to 
death? ” 

Christ thus emphasized the important points of his 
teaching — the offering of blood, the rending of the flesh, 
the setting up of the standard of love. In order to be¬ 
stow life, it is necessary to offer one’s life blood. He made 
it plain what he meant by losing one’s life through the 
figure of the blood. 


100 


Meditations on the Cross 


THE CROSS AS THE PRINCIPLE OF TRUTH 

Let us consider the Cross from three aspects. First, 
the Cross is implied in the principle of social solidarity. 
When one part of society suffers, we all suffer. The re¬ 
sponsibility for society rests upon us all; this is the hori¬ 
zontal aspect of the Cross. We are all compelled to sacri¬ 
fice for society. This is the principle of truth in the Cross, 
or the figure of blood shed for another. Second, there is 
no stepping upward from one level to the next, without 
sacrifice. One generation must sacrifice for the succeed¬ 
ing generation. This we may call the perpendicular aspect 
of the Cross. This is the inner meaning of Jesus’ parable 
of the grain of wheat. The mother, in order that her child 
may grow, must sacrifice her own sleep at night to care for 
him. If she does not do this, the child does not develop 
as he should. 

Christ declared that just as the principle of develop¬ 
ment was eternal, so there must be an eternal offering of 
blood, an eternal sacrifice. This is an eternal principle of 
truth. From the standpoint of the whole creation, no 
matter how worthless or unclean a life some human beings 
may be living, yet because they are included within the 
whole, we must improve their condition or the whole body 
will become infected. If one’s little finger is injured, un¬ 
less the blood circulates freely to the very tip of the finger, 
the whole body will suffer. It becomes imperative to God 
to save all men, even the most worthless. A revolution of 
force has as its aim the elimination of ignoble lives, but 
the gospel movement insists that we must save them. 
This is the spirit of the Cross of Christ. The God of the 
Universe is not some vague and indefinite Being, the Ab¬ 
solute, the Infinite, cold and unfeeling. God is love. The 
fathomless love of the universe is revealed in Christ. To 


The Cross as Truth 


ioi 


redeem others by one’s blood, to fear no suffering, to dis¬ 
regard death, to sacrifice everything, pressing forward 
with boldness toward the goal — these principles of the 
truth of the Cross, are found the very nature of God. The 
Cross is the crystallized love of God. 

Therefore Paul cries, “ Far be it from me to glory, save 
in the Cross of our Lord.” And again, “ For the word of 
the Cross is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us 
who are being saved, it is the power of God.” Again and 
again Paul reiterates that we must live the Cross. In 
Colossians he says, “ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for 
your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of 
the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, 
which is the church.” Like soldiers charging the enemy, 
we must press forward, bearing the Cross of Christ. 

The world progresses. Christ died two thousand years 
ago but still his work is not complete. We must still fill 
up what is lacking in his work. We must share in redeem¬ 
ing the ever recurring sin of man. We must become like 
Christ. By experiencing the love of Christ ourselves, and 
bearing his Cross together, we must further the progress 
of the world. In Philippians we find the words, “ To 
suffer on behalf of Christ.” That is, to participate in his 
suffering. If we take up this Cross and go forward, the 
world will advance and make progress; without the Cross, 
the world will never be perfected. This is what I call the 
principle of truth in the Cross. 

PRAYER 

O God our Father: We thank Thee for Thy great plan 
through which blood was shed upon the Cross in order to 
save us. We thank Thee that Thou didst reveal to our 
gaze the priceless blood of the Cross, to us who are so slow 
of heart, so unable to grasp Thy aims. We are still un- 


102 


Meditations on the Cross 

able to fully comprehend the meaning of the blood which 
Christ shed for us, and are following our own wilful ways, 
while the world gropes on in darkness. Oh, cause us once 
more to experience afresh the eternal truth of the Cross. 
Drive us forward into the world, to shoulder its burden 
of suffering and pain. Wipe away, we beseech Thee, all 
the sins of the world through the blood of the Cross. In 
the name of Christ. Amen. 


vin 


THE CROSS AND THE BLOOD OF CHRIST 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we 
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. I John 
1:7. 


“ This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out 
for many unto remission of sins,” said Jesus. In these 
words he taught us that this blood had a direct relation to 
the salvation of the human race. It is clear that Christ 
had this conception from the time of his early ministry 
in Galilee. Paul accepted this idea and also regarded the 
blood of Christ as indispensable for the salvation of man¬ 
kind. “ God set forth Jesus to be a propitiation through 
faith in his blood.” (Romans 3:25.) We find the same 
thought in Peter, as for example in I Peter 1:18, 19: 
“Knowing that ye were redeemed with precious blood, 
even the blood of Christ.” This was also the faith of 
Christ’s disciple John. 

Why is it that Christ and also his disciples believed 
that there was a special connection between the salvation 
of mankind and the blood of Christ? In the history of 
religion, we find that there has been that connection from 
earliest times. In the nomadic period before agriculture 
was developed, a sheep was man’s most valued possession, 
and by far the most precious part of the sheep was its 
blood. Thus the blood of the sheep came to be the most 


103 


104 Meditations on the Cross 

precious offering which mankind could make God and to 
have a supremely solemn and sacred meaning. 

THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD AND EMANCIPATION 

On the night when the Hebrew people were to be rescued 
out of slavery in Egypt, God commanded that a sprinkling 
or smear of blood be placed upon the doorposts of their 
dwellings. It was no accident that blood should thus 
become the mystic symbol of the freeing of the Jewish 
people and should be kept in memory by the Festival of 
the Passover. The name “ Passover ” was given this 
festival because the angel passed over the houses on whose 
doorposts there was a sprinkling of blood. It was a time 
when the Jewish people gave expression to their devotion 
and complete submission to God by bringing him their 
most precious possession and joyfully flinging it down 
at his feet. Thus the belief was deeply impressed upon 
their hearts that as blood was indispensable for the free¬ 
ing of their people from slavery, so it was also necessary 
for the freeing of the soul from sin. As a primitive peo¬ 
ple they had no philosophy, but they felt that blood was 
necessary to life, and therefore blood became a symbol 
of life. 

THE STRANGE POWER OF BLOOD 

Blood has a strange power. First, it cleanses the body 
of impurities, draws away the pus from injured tissues 
and restores them. Second, it even has the power of re¬ 
building tissues that have been destroyed. It builds not 
only skin and flesh, but, as in the case of the fingernail, 
it has the mysterious power of reproducing the structure 
and form as well. Third, the blood has the power of 
controlling the development of any part of the body, a 
power which reaches into the future. 


The Cross and the Blood of Christ 105 

Thus with the soul as well as the body. The blood not 
only brings redemption from sin but has the power to 
bring about development even to the point where a man 
feels himself to be a child of God. This conception of 
the mysterious power of blood was evidently that of Christ 
and his disciples. But the theological scholars of the 
nineteenth century were too rationalistic and rejected it. 
They did not see religion as related to life. They thought 
of the soul as an abstraction. But the soul does not exist 
apart from life. 

The power of blood means the power of love! If blood 
can bring recovery to the sores of the body, love has the 
power to redeem the wounds of the personality. If blood 
has the power to restore broken-down tissues, love can 
make the wounded personality whole again, until it be¬ 
comes a child of God. It is the teaching of the New 
Testament that the sacrificial love of Christ has this power 
to redeem and make restitution for all the past sins of 
humankind. Not that physical blood can redeem the sins 
of the soul; but to love other men enough to be willing to 
pour out your blood for them, this is the acme of spiritual 
love. Such love has the power to redeem and in this 
lies the hidden reason why Christ poured out his blood 
upon the cross. 

The scholars of the nineteenth century could not under¬ 
stand how Christ could die as a substitute for man, but 
for Christ and his disciples the concept of a substitute 
contained no difficulty. In Matthew 20:28 we find Christ 
saying, “ The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom 
for many.” Here the blood of Christ, that is, of one in¬ 
dividual, is regarded as the indemnity or reparation which 
saves many souls. In a previous chapter we noted that 
old question, raised perhaps by the brethren of the first 
Christian community, “ How can one individual become 


106 Meditations on the Cross 

the salvation of many? ” and the attempt in the fifth chap¬ 
ter of Romans to answer it through the law of inheritance. 
The circulation of the blood in the human body, however, 
provides a sufficient explanation. The action of blood is 
universal; it functions throughout the body, feeding the 
nerve tissues, the digestive organs, the bones, the muscles 
and circulating throughout the whole system, having the 
power to restore any part of it. It is the same with love. 
Love is endowed with the power to redeem and heal 
throughout the past, present and future, every part of the 
whole. The supreme manifestation of that love is the 
blood which Christ shed on the Cross. We believe it to 
be the manifestation of his love and are enabled to be¬ 
lieve in the forgiveness of past sins and the healing of past 
offences. 

THE SOURCE OF FUTURE LIFE 

But the blood not only heals past sins; it also gives fresh 
hope to those who are crippled, and who long to become 
whole again. God forgives all the failures of mankind, 
throughout all the past, out of consideration for Christ’s 
sacrifice. The ransom which Christ paid is not a price 
paid for redemption alone. For the sake of redeeming 
mankind, he has also met the responsibility of the human 
race towards God. We have allowed the debt we owe to 
God to go unpaid; some kind of effort is necessary to re¬ 
call us, who have wandered away, to the right path, and 
to restore us to our true selves. This effort — an effort 
so great it thrills us — Christ himself put forth. This 
price which Jesus paid is like the work of the blood in heal¬ 
ing old wounds. It is a costly work. The blood surren¬ 
ders itself as a sacrificial ransom, fully and freely pouring 
itself out for the sake of the injured part of the body. So 
Christ died that others might be resurrected into new life. 


The Cross and the Blood of Christ 107 

Through the recovery afforded by this love-pattern, 
mankind is thus granted the possibility of being restored 
once more to the status of a child of God. Faith in this 
possibility is indeed faith in God. This is wholly the gift 
of Christ for there is no reason, apart from his love, why 
faith towards God should spring up in our hearts. 

When Christ poured out his blood upon the Cross, he 
set mankind an example before God. To the extent to 
which mankind shows forth love of this sort, it becomes 
unnecessary for the God of heaven and earth to seek for 
a more perfect manifestation of love. If human beings 
advance to the point of pouring out their life blood for 
others, they are then fully restored, fully recovered. 

We cannot doubt that the blood of the Cross is the 
purest and most precious blood ever shed in all history. 
This is the blood which is to save mankind, to redeem 
sinners, and make the human race into children of God. 
The world has seen much shedding of blood, blood shed 
for private advantage, or to satisfy selfish desires. But 
the blood which Christ shed was to save mankind. This 
blood is life itself. “ With a spear they pierced his side, 
and there came out blood and water,” writes John in his 
Gospel, and the words are full of deep meaning. For 
nineteen centuries this blood has been the fountain of life 
and healing for the souls of countless millions. We ap¬ 
preciate anew the lines of the hymn which William Cowper 
sang: 

“ There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.” 

Through this blood-stained love which gave up life itself, 
we must receive the forgiveness of all our past sins, and 
the healing of all the wounds of our hearts. Through 
this marvelous fountain of Emmanuers blood we are to 


108 Meditations on the Cross 

accept healing from all sin — sins which others see, and 
sins they cannot see — our individual sins, and the sins of 
society. 

PRAYER 

Our Father in Heaven: We thank Thee that through the 
blood which Thy son Jesus Christ shed upon the Cross, all 
the old wounds and injuries of our hearts are healed and 
we are cleansed. We praise Thee that it has been made 
plain that no matter how great our sin, it is possible for us 
to be wholly saved. We are deeply grateful, Lord, that 
whether shut within prison walls, we grieve over the sin of 
murder, or whether appalled by the horror of the sins we 
have committed, we stumble out in the forests of the 
mountains, we can believe that through the precious blood 
shed on Calvary’s mount, we can once more be made into 
men. Our sins and offenses are not Thy responsibility, 
nor the fault of society. They are the mistakes which we 
have made through our own selfishness and careless con¬ 
duct. We thank Thee that Christ revealed such tremen¬ 
dous love towards us sinners. We believe in Thy great 
love, and taking Thee simply at Thy word, unworthy as 
we are, we accept Thy salvation and are born anew. With 
our eyes filled with tears of thankfulness, we can only 
long for Thy love and come home to Thy bosom. Amen! 
Amen! We offer up our praise before Thee for the merit 
of the Blood of the Cross. 


IX 


THE CROSS AND PRAYER 

My father , if it be possible, let this cup pass away 
from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. 
Matthew 26:39. 


The last week of Christ’s life was dramatic. Even in 
the Gospel of Mark, the record of these days is full and 
long. The events in the garden of Gethsemane are de¬ 
scribed in detail in the Fourth Gospel. (John 16, 17.) 
It tells us that after his last talk with his disciples, Christ 
“ went forth with them over the brook Kedron.” In Mat¬ 
thew we are told that “ when they had sung a hymn, they 
went out into the Mount of Olives.” Every year a great 
festival is held in Palestine to celebrate the deliverance of 
the Hebrews from slavery. It is probable that the hymn 
which Christ sang as he and his disciples crossed the 
brook Kedron was the song sung at this festival, a song 
of praise. Christ was composed and calm enough to sing, 
although he realized that Judas was laying a plot against 
him. No doubt he felt, as he entered that garden, that he 
had been singing his own funeral dirge. 

When you visit Palestine today, and cross the brook 
Kedron, you find a road on the bank opposite the garden 
of Gethsemane, which in former days probably led from 
the Gate Beautiful to the garden. Nowadays this road 
is closed, and one has to enter from the northern side, but 
it is possible that Christ entered the garden by this road 


109 


no Meditations on the Cross 

from the Gate Beautiful. In those days there were many 
olive trees growing in the garden. Probably Christ left his 
disciples, and went on by himself a few paces to pray be¬ 
neath some large tree. He must have prayed aloud, for 
otherwise there would have been no way for us to know of 
the prayer in the 38th and 39th verses of Matthew. It 
was a very short prayer, and it was overheard, no doubt, 
by the disciples a little distance off. 

THE NIGHT OF SORROW 

Although Christ seldom revealed his heart to others, 
this night he said, “ My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even 
unto death.” This was plain speaking for Christ. It was 
as though he said to Peter, “ I am so burdened with 
anxiety that I feel as though I were going to die.” His 
emotion was heroic, and far beyond the imagination of the 
ordinary man. The disciples had no occasion for dejec¬ 
tion. Up to the very last moment they thought that if 
Christ would simply raise his hand, he could take over 
the government of the country; therefore they felt that 
there was no reason for anxiety. Christ’s saying that he 
was burdened with anxiety, even to the point of death, 
reveals the tremendous difference between his point of 
view and theirs. Christ was not anxious about the pos¬ 
sibility of revolution or about how to control the people 
in case of such an uprising; he was burdened by his sense 
of responsibility for the fate of humankind. 

It was this that made Christ pray with such earnest¬ 
ness. He was in distress of mind as to whether or not he 
should seek to avoid the fate which he had taken upon his 
shoulders. “ My Father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass away from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as 
Thou wilt.” It was a brief and simple prayer, yet it clearly 
revealed Christ’s feelings. 


The Cross and Prayer 


hi 


Three groups of people were there that night. First, 
Christ and his best loved disciples; second, the eight other 
disciples; third, the chief priest and his servants, and 
Judas Iscariot, who had been in treacherous communica¬ 
tion with them. Before leaving the house Christ had fore¬ 
told that his fate was drawing near. 

As he entered the garden he may have heard the sound 
of footsteps approaching. He was fully aware of what 
was happening. Telling his disciples to “ watch and pray,” 
he went to pray himself. His disciples were tired and fell 
asleep. More than once he returned to them to warn them, 
but they were too tired even to reply to him. 

As he prayed in agony he could hear the tramp of the 
feet of those bent on his destruction. They drew nearer 
and nearer. As they came up to him, Christ said, “ Behold, 
he is at hand that betrayeth me.” He knew Judas Iscariot 
was the man. Judas knew the place to which he was likely 
to go. Only about a week before that, Christ had chosen 
this garden as a place of prayer. The records tell us that 
he went frequently to the Mount of Olives. That was why 
Judas came to look there for him. He knew it would not 
be hard to find him. If not in the garden, it would be easy 
to find him by inquiring of Martha and Mary in Bethany. 

“ Friend, for what purpose have you come? ” was 
Christ’s response as Judas kissed him. An instant later 
that purpose was abundantly clear, for the soldiers seized 
Jesus. Impetuous Peter indignantly attacked them, cut¬ 
ting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus reproved 
him and healed the man; then meekly yielded himself to 
his captors and left the garden. 

A WHOLLY HUMAN CHRIST 

There was a custom in Egypt and Asia Minor of giving 
condemned criminals a cup of poison to drink. Christ did 


112 Meditations on the Cross 

not wish to drink this bitter cup of the Cross and yet chose 
it. It would have been easy for him to have chosen his 
own happiness instead of God’s great mission for him, but 
he did not seek ease. His whole life was freed from self 
and given to seeking to do God’s will. 

We see the Christ-likeness of Jesus in his repeated 
prayer, “ Thy will be done.” Had he only said, “ Thy will 
be done,” it would not have been a prayer. It is the words, 
“ Let this cup pass away from me,” which make it a true 
prayer. It is a human prayer, and yet it breathes a spirit 
of complete consecration. “ If the Cross is necessary, 
make me, I beseech Thee, take Thy way; I have no desires 
or hopes of my own; if there is no other way, I accept Thy 
will gladly.” Here we see the point of struggle in Christ’s 
experience. If he had been so far separated from human 
feelings as to say merely, “ 0 God, do as Thou wilt,” it 
would not have been genuinely human suffering. He is 
human because as one who was to manifest God’s will 
upon earth, he was caught in a dilemma, and his nobility 
lies in the way he met this dilemma. Herein, too, lies the 
greatness of our religion. 

There are two ways of looking at the problem, God’s 
way, and man’s way. According to the human viewpoint, 
one wishes to map out his own road; but when he considers 
God’s will he throws aside his selfishness, and becomes 
willing to follow God’s path. The prayer at Gethsemane 
is the bond between these two. From the human stand¬ 
point, one is averse to the Cross; one does not wish to 
inflict death on one’s self; but from God’s viewpoint, this 
is unavoidable. To choose death seems like a self-contra¬ 
diction; but when we really make up our minds to pray, 
there is no other prayer but this. 

Inasmuch as the depth of one’s religious experience is 
measured by the degree to which God can use one accord- 


The Cross and Prayer 


113 

ing to his purposes, it becomes profoundly significant 
to us that Christ should have offered such a prayer. The 
majority of people, both in former times and in this pres¬ 
ent day, take the attitude that the inevitable is God’s will. 
But that is not Christ’s attitude; up to the very last mo¬ 
ment, he realizes he has the power of choice and yet he 
accepts God’s will. Herein we see Christ’s true character. 

There are many of us Orientals who say, “ It is God’s 
will! ” It is an old saying with us that everything is 
karma; everything is determined by fate. But that is 
equivalent to saying that man is not free to choose in any 
situation; one may be fated to commit murder, or to die 
by starvation; there is nothing we can do about it. 
Christ’s attitude, however, was that, as a human being, 
he was free to choose and he was determined to live his 
life to the full. He would exert himself to the utmost, 
and then what man could not do must be left to the will 
of God. Herein lies the focal point of Christ’s spiritual 
struggle. 


THE ETERNAL GETHSEMANE 

Christ did a glorious thing when he made restitution to 
God. It was far above what other men would think of 
doing. He felt a deep sense of responsibility, and was fully 
conscious of the meaning of his act. It was not suicide; 
but rather Christ revealed his true character when he 
gravely chose that way. We must follow this same path; 
after we have poured out every bit of human effort pos¬ 
sible, then we must say, “Let it be done according to 
God’s will.” This is the eternal Gethsemane. 

Charles Gordon was the British general who came to 
China, and later died in battle at Khartoum in Egypt. It 
is said that when Gordon prayed, he put a white hand¬ 
kerchief at the entrance to his tent. When that white 


114 Meditations on the Cross 

handkerchief was flying, no one was permitted to enter, 
for it was his time for prayer. He persevered in prayer, 
and he did not pray merely about his own problems. He 
used to pray, “ Deliver us, O Lord, if it be Thy will, from 
being surrounded by the enemy, but if there is no other 
way and my men must die, let them die as unto Thee.” 
We must have this serious earnestness in prayer. 

Marshal Foch is said to have been often in prayer. He 
used to pray continually during battle. If he had a mo¬ 
ment to spare, he used to go to pray into some church, 
wrecked by shells, and gaping with shell-holes, for prayer 
was to him simply a form of guidance. 

There is a lesson for us in the fact that Jesus prayed 
the whole night through. In long-continued meditation 
one draws nearer and nearer to God, until he makes his 
petitions not for the advancement of his own interests, but 
for the glory of God. The heavier the responsibilities 
one carries, the more numerous are the demands which 
one makes of God. The more one feels his own respon¬ 
sibilities, the more deeply should one ponder the prayer 
of Christ in Gethsemane. 

In the early days of Christianity in Japan, there came 
a moment of crisis in 1873 when there was a general cry 
for the extermination of the new faith. There were but 
a handful of Christians when Ibuka, Uemura, Okuno, and 
a group who were living in Dr. Brown’s school, received 
word from Tokyo that they would probably be killed. 
They thought their throats would be cut that very night. 
They met together and prayed earnestly not for escape, 
but that since they believed in the Cross, they might have 
the resolution to die upon it. In the midst of their prayer 
meeting, they received another communication that they 
had been pardoned. They were so full of joy, they hardly 
knew whether their heads were still on their shoulders or 


The Cross and Prayer 


US 

not. Our Christianity, Japan’s Christianity, has come 
down to us from such a prayer meeting. 

THE CROSS AS FATE 

To us Orientals it is possible, as I said above, to think 
of the Cross as Christ’s karma . Such Oriental determin¬ 
ism is, however, in complete contrast to the attitude of 
Christ. Through Christ’s faith it was revealed to him that 
he could not selfishly protest against the Cross, and he 
prayed, “ Take my life, if it be Thy will, but save me, if it 
be Thy will that my life should be spared.” Someone has 
said that the work of atonement was accomplished in the 
Garden of Gethsemane rather than on the Cross. There 
is some truth in this. According to Luke’s account, 
Christ prayed with such earnestness that his sweat became 
drops of blood. When we think of this impassioned 
prayer, we realize that we, too, must pray with like flam¬ 
ing earnestness for Japan, for America, for China, for the 
whole world. Not one such petition is in vain. Prayer is 
bound to be heard. 

I am particularly struck with the fact that Christ’s 
prayer was not in the least for himself. If prayer has 
meaning only for one’s self, it will not be heard. True 
prayer is not for one’s self. If it voices the aspirations of 
humanity, it will be heard. There was not the slightest 
trace of selfishness in Christ’s prayer, “ If for the redemp¬ 
tion of mankind, it is necessary that I should be killed, I 
am willing to go to my death.” This attitude is the acme 
of the life of faith. To pray in this spirit is the highest 
type of religious consciousness. When in poverty, dis¬ 
tress, or any sort of trouble we pray in this spirit, we gain 
the victory. 

Christ gave up his life upon the Cross the day after he 
prayed this earnest prayer. And there is proof that his 


n 6 Meditations on the Cross 

prayer was answered, in that the men of the world have 
been drawn to him, and that even now a consciousness of 
the reality of Christ continues with us; a consciousness 
so deep and satisfying that it is fully adequate to our 
needs. 

We do not have enough conviction about prayer. If 
we pray only a little, our prayers are answered only to 
that degree. If we pray much, we receive many answers. 
Christ’s activity was founded on prayer. We must not 
make ourselves alone the center, but our prayers must 
show a sense of responsibility toward God for Japan, for 
Asia, for the whole world. 

PRAYER 

Great God our Father: As we call to mind the scene 
of Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane, our hearts are filled 
with penitence and shame that we foolishly waste our 
time in idleness and that we make no progress in the Chris¬ 
tian life from day to day. We confess that during these 
nineteen hundred years, though the world has advanced 
in scientific knowledge, we have made but little progress 
in respect and reverence for our neighbors and in love to¬ 
wards our fellow-men. We are ashamed that war and lust 
flourish and grow more rampant every day. Forgive us 
for our cruel indifference to the Cross, and pardon us 
that like the bystanders of old, we merely stand and gaze 
in idle curiosity upon the piteous scene. O teach us, we 
beseech Thee, the good news of Thy forgiveness. Cause 
humanity, degenerate as it is, to live anew, and hasten the 
day when the whole world shall be born again. 

Grant Thy healing power to those who suffer from 
poverty and distress; to those who suffer in industry; to 
the workers who suffer unjustly in the factories; to those 
who are entangled by the temptations of the stock market, 


The Cross and Prayer 


117 

and have lost themselves in the mad race for riches. Save 
the hundreds of thousands of unemployed and relieve 
Japan of the insecurity which prevails throughout its bor¬ 
ders. Oh, take away the sufferings of this sinful world. 

Thou Living God! Lay Thy hands afresh upon the 
Houses of Parliament and grant us a righteous govern¬ 
ment through Thy power. Have pity upon China which 
has suffered one tumult after another these many years, 
and stretch forth a saving hand toward those regions which 
suffer from famine. Look down in compassion on the 
sufferings of Russia, of Korea, of Europe, and cause the 
day to draw nigh when these lands shall live in Thy peace. 
Let the gospel of Christ take deep root among our brothers 
in Germany, England, France and America. Pour down 
Thy Spirit upon us, and wrap the world in flames of fire 
which, like Pentecost, shall awaken all the nations of the 
world. 

Teach us the solemnity of the Cross. Bless the churches 
of Japan and strengthen their faltering feet and withered 
hands. Teach these churches to pray with such earnestness 
that they will shed tears of blood for the redemption of 
mankind. We pray this in the name of Him who hung 
upon the Cross, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 


X 


THE CROSS AND THE FINE ART OF DEATH 

0 death, where is thy victory? O death, where is 
thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power 
of sin is the law: but thanks be to God who giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ . I Co¬ 
rinthians i5:55-57- 


Paul’s path lay through the borderland between life 
and death, and he often met the latter face to face. He 
was nearly killed in the outskirts of Lystra; he was threat¬ 
ened by lions in the arena of Ephesus; he barely escaped 
with his life by being let down in the middle of the night 
in a basket from the top of the wall of the city of Damas¬ 
cus. Having been thus repeatedly forced to face death, 
Paul bursts into a triumphant song of victory. Like a 
general returning from successful conquest, he cries out 
that victory has drunk down death. “ Death is swallowed 
up in victory! ” 

It was not so with most men of those ancient times. 
Death was a fearful thing to them. Men spent their whole 
fortunes in anticipation of it. The pyramids show this. 
Even in Japan we have mausoleums which took more than 
one generation to build, such as that of the Emperor Nin- 
toku. The Mozushima tomb, the greatest in all Japan, 
was begun while the Emperor was still living and com¬ 
pleted just a little while before his death, requiring a period 
of some twenty-five or thirty years. Today such monu- 
118 


The Cross and the Fine Art of Death 119 

ments would cost millions of yen. The pyramids also 
were built before the death of the one in whose honor they 
were erected. At Milan in Italy, there are hundreds of 
tombs which have cost five million yen apiece. Upon 
arrival at the railroad station, it is the thing to do to go 
immediately to see them. Nor is it unusual to find in 
any country, in America and Europe, in Mexico, Brazil, or 
Peru, instances of men who have spent the earnings of a 
lifetime upon erecting their tombs. 

Paul was both a philosopher and an idealist, and the 
message which he gave to the world was one which even 
the great rulers of Alexandria had not been able to pro¬ 
claim. Why did not Paul feel any fear or insecurity? 
The fundamental reason is to be found in his relation to 
Jesus Christ. 

In the first place, Jesus Christ did not fear death. Some 
eighteen months before his death, he foretold it. “ I shall 
die,” said he, “ in a short time, and my death will not 
be an ordinary one. I shall die by crucifixion and that 
crucifixion will be at the hands of foreigners.” Though 
Jesus foresaw his death, he went straight on, facing it 
squarely. He was submissive and obedient to God’s will. 
He felt that death was a necessary thing and that he had 
conquered it. Paul’s words give expression to the same 
idea. Death is not something to be afraid of; under cer¬ 
tain circumstances death is in itself victory. 

Another point is found in the resurrection. Had Jesus 
Christ not risen from the dead, Christianity would not 
be what it is today. The resurrection — that is, the 
mysterious experience of a future life — revitalized his¬ 
tory. It was the experience of fearlessly treading death 
under foot which caused Paul to say these words. Be¬ 
cause Paul was a philosopher, he could not be satisfied 
with Jesus’ simple attitude; he must construct a theory of 


120 Meditations on the Cross 

the resurrection. He explains it at length in a beautiful 
passage, in such a way that we are able to grasp the truth. 

He distinguishes between a body which dies and one 
which does not die. The simple body of flesh dies, but 
there is something which does not die, that is, the spiritual 
body. We are born with a physical body; we are resur¬ 
rected in a spiritual body. Jesus is said to have appeared 
to his disciples after his death with a certain body. How 
could he appear before them in visible form, when the doors 
were fast shut? Paul conceives of a spiritual body which 
exists in space, and was convinced that while one was 
born with a physical body, one could be resurrected with 
a spiritual body. (I Corinthians 15:12-14.) 

THE PHYSICAL BODY AND THE SPIRITUAL BODY 

A desk or a glass has a physical substance, while electric¬ 
ity, although still physical, is quite different from these 
things. All atoms are made up of electrons. These 
molecular atoms do not have a physical body such as 
we are accustomed to think of. A physical substance has 
weight, hardness, and breadth or thickness, but one can¬ 
not conceive of the atom as having solidity. It has 
been discovered that an atom has a definite weight — 
a form of energy in motion. Science has shown within 
the last few years that the atom is produced by waves of 
energy and therefore that one can conceive of it as having 
some slight breadth or thickness, but not solidity. When 
we follow this line of reasoning a little further, and take 
the next step, we can conceive of a substance which would 
not have weight or solidity, but which would have only 
extension or breadth. This is therefore the spiritual body. 
It is this sort of body that we dream of. The people of 
our dreams do not have weight or solidity but they do 


The Cross and the Fine Art of Death 12 i 

have a shape. In this way, the world of electrical forces 
is different from what we imagine. 

Outside of purely physical concepts, there are many 
things in the phenomena of the universe that are beyond 
our comprehension. Unquestionably one of these is the 
soul’s progress from the physical to the spiritual body. 
We do not by any means know all that there is to be known 
about this. We find the words, “ We shall all be changed.” 
(I Corinthians 15:52.) This means a step forward. It 
is an instantaneous change. Like the change which takes 
place when the babe leaves the womb, we are transformed 
instantly into spirit. 

GOD DOES NOT DESERT US 

Paul makes the point also that God does not abandon 
mankind to the fate of death. If God were merely to 
leave him to die, there would be nothing more pitiable than 
man. This is the cry of the human heart. As Paul pon¬ 
ders this problem, he concludes: “ And if Christ hath not 
been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith is vain; 
ye are yet in your sins. If the dead are not raised, let us 
eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” If the dead depart 
abruptly and the spirit perishes, and that is all there is 
to it, there is nothing better for us to do than to eat and 
drink, says Paul, for mankind has only the pleasure of 
the present moment. 

Materialism is no new thing; it was found even in those 
ancient days. The cult of Pythagoras which was popular 
in the lands bordering on the Mediterranean was a ma¬ 
terialistic cult. From this group of materialists there de¬ 
veloped hedonism, teaching that there was no necessity 
for self-control or sacrifice, for love or service; the es¬ 
sence of human life was selfishly to seek one’s own pleas- 


122 Meditations on the Cross 

ure, and to spend one’s life in rioting to one’s heart’s con¬ 
tent. 

Life is not so simple as that. The famous Myers of 
England, who died some ten years ago, made a specialty 
of psychical research to prove the continuity of human 
life. Such men as Lombroso of Italy, who was a Marx¬ 
ist and followers of Straus, who in 1848 were materialists, 
afterward revised their materialistic assumptions. In an¬ 
other twenty-five years Marxism, too, may become spir¬ 
itual, for the conviction that man has a soul is too strong 
to remain long suppressed. 

Paul’s position was not the crude materialism of Marx. 
Standing on the steps, as it were, of weight and solidity, 
he conceives of a spiritual body which has neither of these 
characteristics. As a solid substance can become fluid, 
and the fluid a vapor, so we may conceive of life changing 
from one form to another. I am convinced that we of the 
twentieth century are in a position to think deeply into 
this problem. 

DEATH AND THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE 

It is a fact in mathematics that if any quantity is trans¬ 
ferred from one side of an equation to the other it is 
unchanged, but its plus sign becomes a minus or its 
minus sign a plus. There is a corresponding continuity 
to be observed in the world of life. In it we can find 
no example of anything developed by a long and con¬ 
tinuous process up to a certain point, suddenly being 
broken off and vanishing into nothingness. Nor is this 
consistent with man’s real nature. In human progress, 
when the development of the physical body comes to a 
stop, the spirit develops. In the spiritual nature, first and 
most important is the development of the intelligence; 
when the growth of the intelligence halts, the emotions 


The Cross and the Fine Art of Death 123 

develop; and when the emotions cease to grow, the de¬ 
velopment of the will begins. Myers went so far as to 
assert that in the world after death, the intelligence does 
not develop, but only the will, and Sir Oliver Lodge also 
held this opinion. 

If we conceive of a “nothingness” in the life after 
death, the German philosopher Schopenhauer says, we 
must also conceive of a “ nothingness ” which preceded 
the conception and life in the mother’s womb. If we are 
to bewail the nothingness of the future, why not bewail 
the nothingness of the past? 

The God of the universe has under certain conditions 
created us out of “ nothingness.” If this is true, and 
nothingness should again claim us in the future, the God 
of the universe will again call us out from the void. 
In other words, nothingness is not the terminal point. 
As long as God is infinite, our souls are also immortal. 
The soul is not immortal independently of God, but be¬ 
cause the infinite God is mindful of us; in that sense our 
souls are indestructible. It was for this reason that 
Christ, who had utter confidence in the Heavenly Father, 
said when on the cross, “ Into Thy hands I commend my 
spirit.” Christ did not have the least fear of death. His 
trust in God, the Father in heaven, had trampled it under 
foot. Herein lies the victory also of his disciples. 

DEATH AND VICTORY IN LIFE 

There is one thing in the world which does not die. The 
science of physics tells us that the energy which fills the 
universe is indestructible; it is universal. That which 
relies on God does not die. Since God made death, death 
must have some useful purpose, otherwise it would not 
have been necessary for God to have made it. It has the 
function of selection, and to the good man, it gives rest 


124 Meditations on the Cross 

from labor. If we believe in the God who made death, we 
need have no doubts or need we fear death in the least. 

“ But when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup¬ 
tion and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
swallowed up in victory.” (I Corinthians 15:54.) Paul 
finishes his sentence with the word victory. Death is the 
victory of God. Although to man things look hopeless, 
something greater than man has conquered him, and from 
the standpoint of that conqueror, death is intelligible. 
Death was created by God; there is no reason therefore 
why those who believe God should fear death. Since God 
is the Absolute Infinite, there is no death with God. This 
is what is meant by death being swallowed up in victory, 
for death is victory. 

By victory, he means God’s victory. D’Annunzio 
speaks of the victory of death, but Paul is talking about 
the victory of God. God is victory itself, and because we 
are assured of the victory which is in him, we trample 
death beneath our feet. 

My teacher, Mrs. Logan, fell ill with pneumonia and 
the doctor gave up all hope of recovery. She knew for a 
day before her death that she was going to die. She sang 
a hymn in farewell, and asked others to sing her favorite 
hymn; then she called the servant who had worked for her 
for twenty years, and said, “ Take good care of your mas¬ 
ter, and be careful that he does not suffer from the lack 
of proper food. You must not weep for we will surely 
meet again.” They told me that it was with such words 
as these that she fell asleep. She went forth into death as 
though she were taking a journey from Kobe to Tokyo. 
It seemed to me when I heard this from Dr. Logan that 
there could not have been a more beautiful and victorious 
death than this. Mrs. Logan had been praying for her 


The Cross and the Fine Art of Death 125 

physician, for he had said that he could not understand re¬ 
ligious faith. And he made a confession of faith on the 
spot, asking that he be counted a Christian. I do not 
know of any more splendid death. This is the victory 
which is in God. 

We may not be able to understand physics, or the crea¬ 
tion of electrons, or again we may have no knowledge of 
spiritualism, but we can believe that God created death. 
Paul cried, “ 0 Death, where is thy victory? ” We, too* 
must prepare for death by believing, with full assurance 
of absolute victory, that Jesus, by bearing the cross, has 
conquered death. 


PRAYER 

O God our Father: There are those among us who re¬ 
fuse to take life seriously. Forgive us, Lord, that though 
we are born into this stern old world, and must some day 
come face to face with the solemnity of death, yet we are 
spending our days like spoiled children. But Thou didst 
conquer death through Christ. We believe that Thou hast 
trampled death under foot and vanquished it utterly. En¬ 
able us, when we come face to face with death, to pass 
through it with perfect composure, and to hold fast a firm 
faith as we go into the world of eternity. Grant that we 
may discover God’s path in deepened experience, through 
our lives of poverty; make us like God in purity, in depth. 
We beseech Thee to guide our young men, make them 
strong; inspire them, and save the land of Japan through 
them. We pray this in Christ. Amen. 


XI 


THOSE WHO TAKE UP THE CROSS 

But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. 
Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be 
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? 
Mark 10:38. 


“The Cross is out of date! In this new age a religion 
based on suffering is no longer of value. It should be sup¬ 
planted by one of joy and hope and optimism. A religion 
based on pain is medieval and unsuited to our modern 
minds! ” Though there are “ enlightened ” folk who say 
this, I do not agree with them. Progress involves sacrifice, 
and sacrifice is the only road toward perfection. It is an 
eternal necessity — the sacrifice of the parent for the 
child, of the teacher for his pupils, of the seed for the sake 
of the harvest. 

We are more familiar with the necessity of such sacri¬ 
fices in a vertical time-sequence — as of the older genera¬ 
tion for the sake of the younger — than in their horizontal 
aspect. Sacrifice needs to be all-inclusive. We must as¬ 
sume responsibility for others born in the same age as our¬ 
selves, for society as a whole. 

When a group of people make a contract to borrow 
funds, if one member in the contract fails, the next party 
must assume the liability, and if he fails, then the remain¬ 
ing parties to the contract must bear the responsibility. 
This joint responsibility for society is what we mean by 
social solidarity. 


126 


Those Who Take up the Cross 127 

In the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, the relation of 
the body to its members is used as an illustration of the 
mutual responsibility of people for one another. If there 
were nothing to hold the members of the body together, 
it could not function; so with society. If we are truly 
concerned about its progress, we must take responsibility 
for society as a whole. 

In direct opposition to this, the tendency of Christianity 
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was toward in¬ 
dividualism. In contradistinction to love of society, the 
individualistic virtues of independence and liberty were 
stressed. Thence came the terrible social corruption of 
our modern day. 

The Cross of Christ has therefore two chief values. In 
the first place, it has a value in time. “ Except a grain of 
wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself 
alone.” For eternal progress, eternal sacrifice is essential. 
One of the greatest of Christ’s parables is that of the lost 
sheep. Then the Cross has also a value in space. These 
values are eternal principles for us. Those who are too 
selfish, and too much absorbed in their own satisfactions, 
cannot understand the meaning of the Cross. But for 
those who are striving to make society flawless in every 
aspect, the Cross is a universal principle. 

Christianity has taken this Cross and without under¬ 
standing its significance has explained atoning love as 
dogma. To those who are without love, it is naturally a 
difficult dogma. They do not understand what sort of 
life-principle love is. We must fix our gaze upon the 
Cross. And from the universal love revealed there, we 
must come to a sense of responsibility for the whole of 
society. This may seem simple, but its implications con¬ 
stitute a challenge as wide as the universe and as difficult 
to compass. 


128 


Meditations on the Cross 


THREE STEPS IN THE CROSS 

The work of Christ manifested itself in three ways: first 
in teaching; second in practice; and third, in conscious¬ 
ness. His teaching was that of love; his practice, the 
practice of love; and his consciousness that of the Cross. 
His teaching was great in itself, yet it would not have 
made him great if it had been unaccompanied by prac¬ 
tice. 

Gandhi is an advocate of non-resistance but there is a 
group among his followers who on occasion throw bombs. 
The early Christians were consistent. They stood for tak¬ 
ing no indemnity for injury and were absolutely faithful 
to this principle. Jesus himself is an example, and his 
movement may be considered as an unsuccessful revolu¬ 
tion based on the principle of non-resistance. It is said 
that one tribe of Christians refused to fight in self-defense 
and were completely wiped out. To a wonderful degree 
of loyalty, they put their religion into practice. Today 
the Korean Christians, in the same sort of situation, 
though pillaged of their money by the army, put the teach¬ 
ings of Christ into practice. This is sublime. 

Nineteen hundred years ago the practice of non-resist¬ 
ance on the part of the early Christians made scarcely a 
ripple; the world was not influenced by it. But the fact 
that we must note here is rather that they were fully con¬ 
scious of what they were doing. That consciousness does 
influence us greatly. We must show ourselves Christians 
in the details of daily life, even in the way we light the 
kitchen fire. We must practice our principles not only 
among ourselves but in our relations with other nations. 
If we do not have the consciousness that we are the chil¬ 
dren of the true God, we look at those of other nations 
with scorn, and say, “That fellow’s a foreigner! ” We 


Those Who Take up the Cross 129 

must practice our Christian principles as Japanese in our 
relations to the Chinese. 

Christ’s basic principle, which he expressed in saying 
that we must love even the very least of men, did not arise 
from his teaching, neither did it come from his practice. 
It grew out of the fact that he had entered into the con¬ 
sciousness of God. The consciousness of atonement, that 
is, the conscious sharing of the atoning purposes of God, is 
not separate from the consciousness of God, or the con¬ 
sciousness of being a child of God. Whoever would bear 
responsibility for others must have sympathies broad 
enough to include the failures, the human derelicts. He 
has not entered into the consciousness of God who looks at 
some mean fellow whom society counts worthless, and 
says, “ Oh, that fellow! He’s hopeless; he’s just a good- 
for-nothing! ” The nearer to God we come, the more con¬ 
scious we grow of our responsibility towards those worth¬ 
less folk who are regarded as the very dirt under one’s 
finger-nail. If we ask why it was that Christ always chose 
the worthless folk, it was because he possessed a one 
hundred per cent consciousness of God; he shared to per¬ 
fection in his own consciousness the redemptive purpose 
of God. 

The communists tell us that all that is needed to set the 
world right is to destroy the bourgeoisie, because they 
have taken possession of a large percentage of the wealth 
of society. A capitalist who possesses property is guilty 
of a crime and the communists intend therefore to kill 
him. In this the communists do not distinguish between 
men and property, though even in the eyes of the law these 
are differentiated. This disregard of the sacredness of 
human life hinges on lack of consciousness of atonement; 
they do not share the consciousness of God. Although 
they have grasped the communistic principles of the 


130 Meditations on the Cross 

Soviet intellectually, yet in their practice they are still 
“American” (and capitalistic), as one of their own lead¬ 
ers has said. But the three — teaching, practice and con¬ 
sciousness — must work side by side, as they did in 
Christ, and we must strive for a unity of these three as¬ 
pects in our work. 

THE REALIZATION OF THE LOVE OF THE CROSS 

We must have clear and strong convictions of our mis¬ 
sion of atonement; we must share in the purpose of God, 
who seeks to redeem all. This is what I mean by becom¬ 
ing God-conscious. The disciples of Christ possessed this 
consciousness, even from the first century of the Christian 
era. In the second century we find the early Christians 
spending their strength in nursing the victims of the 
plague, even though they themselves contracted the dread 
disease. The nursing of the sick is one of the noblest pro¬ 
fessions, for it is an expression of the spirit of the Cross. 
The founder of the first hospital was Gallicanus. Hold¬ 
ing the rank of consul, he devoted all his fortune to setting 
up a place for the sick. He nursed them with his own 
hands and was eager to help everyone, even slaves. Our 
Japanese word for hospital is written with the two ideo¬ 
graphs meaning “ place ” and “ sick,” a place for the sick, 
but that is not the real meaning of the word hospital. A 
“ hospital ” means literally “ a place where kindness is 
shown.” We are mistaken in calling it a place for sick 
people. 

In the Occident in these “places where kindness is 
shown ” the nurses often display greater nobleness of 
character than the doctors, and are highly respected. It 
is said that in England the automobiles will stop when they 
meet a woman walking along the street in uniform of the 
hospital of St. Thomas. There is the same attitude of 


Those Who Take up the Cross 13 i 

respect toward nurses in America as well. There is a 
statue of the nurse Edith Cavell, in Charing Cross in Lon¬ 
don, and at the foot of the statue are the words, “ Pa¬ 
triotism is not enough.” When the Germans were display¬ 
ing the bitterest hatred toward the English, Edith Cavell 
nursed the enemy soldiers with great devotion; but this 
nurse, who was the very incarnation of love, was shot as a 
spy. England has honored her by erecting this statue, 
and nurses have been granted the privilege of sitting next 
in rank to the plenipotentiaries of all countries at public 
functions. 

You do not find the nurses in England starting a move¬ 
ment for higher wages; there are no such things as strikes 
among the nurses there, nor among the doctors, nor among 
the grade school-teachers. I am sorry that the nurses of 
Japan have been so insistent in demanding higher rates 
of pay. If one is going to be the sort of nurse who is con¬ 
cerned about getting a salary, it is better not to become a 
nurse at all. The doctor has no right to refuse to come, 
no matter when he is called. The true Red Cross means 
that one cares for the sick whether one receives a salary 
or not. Let us think of nursing as a practical expression 
of the love of the Cross. 

The fundamental principles of redemption are not con¬ 
tained in theology alone; they must be actualized in social 
ways. Dogma is useful as an explanation of love. I be¬ 
lieve in the resurrection in the sense that the love of God 
makes the resurrection possible. And the meaning of the 
Virgin Birth is that God’s love is capable of it. And so 
with the doctrine of the Trinity; it means that God is not 
only a transcendent God, but that he enters into relation 
with mankind, he even dwells within us, poor and weak as 
we are. In the Father lies the transcendency of God; in 
the Son, his manifestation; in the Holy Spirit, his imma- 


132 Meditations on the Cross 

nence — this is the meaning of the Trinity. For that 
reason, if we reject the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we are 
greatly put to it to explain the love of God. 

I believe in God’s sense of responsibility for the whole 
of society as redemptive love. This is the fundamental 
principle in the love of God. God’s deep love has got 
into touch with mankind. Fundamentalism, therefore, is 
only a partial explanation of the love of God, and Mod¬ 
ernism sees only the surface and does not dig down to the 
root of the matter. Here in Japan it is my earnest hope 
that our young people may not be carried away by either 
of these “ isms.” I do not want to emphasize theological 
controversies. I hope that our young people may rather 
give their whole energies to the realization of sacrificial 
love as wide as the whole of society and as broad as the 
entire universe. I pray that they may penetrate beneath 
the surface agitations of doctrine and dogma to the great 
underlying law of love. 

Only those who are fully conscious can thoroughly 
grasp the principle of love.* In the individual, this prin¬ 
ciple is manifested as the Cross. We must re-study the 
meaning of the Cross from both the standpoint of theology 
and that of science, and re-discover its meaning; then it 
will be no longer a Cross for mere discussion, or a doctrine 


* This refers to Dr. Kagawa’s outline of human evolution (c/. page 
136) as consisting of three stages: unconsciousness, semi-consciousness, 
and the fully conscious stage. This concept appears frequently in his 
pages, as in the poetical introduction, where he writes, “ Then after a 
long interval came to full consciousness,” and “ Christ is the first man to 
awake to full consciousness of the Universe.” His phrase, in the same 
poem, “This full Cross-consciousness,” means the same thing, as also 
when he writes: “ In the history of the human race there is needed the 
creation of this Cross-consciousness, that is to say, the creation of the 
inner life of its very soul.” Dr. Kagawa’s idea is that individuals awaken 
to this stage of full consciousness variously. Some are awake, and some 
are not yet so. — H. T. 


Those Who Take up the Cross 133 

which but partially explains its meaning. The Cross 
will be an inner experience, and our consciousness of the 
Cross will be realized in practice. 

THE ROAD OF SELF-LIMITATION 

The Cross, because it is the Cross, proceeds from the 
infinite to the finite. It originates in the heart of God 
but it takes the form of a human being, a man. There is 
an element of self-limitation in the Cross. Christ told 
his disciples not to go to the Samaritans nor to the Gen¬ 
tiles, but to the lost sheep of Israel. He told them to go 
to the lost Judeans, though they numbered but one per 
cent of the people. That means that we must choose 
our sphere of activity. Some must work for the pro¬ 
letariat, some for the farmer class. Some are to limit 
themselves to the work for those who earn their liveli¬ 
hood upon the sea. Some people are to limit their 
work to those who are ill. They do not go to those who 
are in health, but to those who are weak, to those who are 
“ lost ” through illness. We must dig deep in these limited 
fields of labor. As long as we are drawn hither and 
thither, and want to do this, and that, there is no Cross in 
it for us. 

The worst limitation our Cross will put upon us will be 
personal weakness caught from our environment. If you 
go among the lost sheep, beware lest you yourselves should 
lose your way. It is the common mistake of elementary 
school-teachers that no matter where they go they think 
of themselves as teachers, and do not have the desire to 
be taught. When we go to work for the poor in the slums, 
we find them all talking roughly, and unconsciously, we 
too, before we know it, may have caught their rough way 
of speech. 

Christ said a striking thing when he said, “He that 


134 Meditations on the Cross 

believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also and 
greater works than these shall he do.” Those who take up 
the Cross and go forward are able to do astonishing things. 
The Mennonites, who were driven out of Russia, are put¬ 
ting into practice a wholly cooperative enterprise in 
Brazil.* Nominal communism is worthless, but the com¬ 
munism of this group springs out of Chrises teaching. 
We have determined to take up the Cross and go forward, 
each in the sphere revealed to him. Let us guard against 
falling into sentimentalism, or against being carried away 
by this or that new tendency of the times. We are apt to 
fall into such errors. We must press on, carrying the 
Cross, each with a clear understanding of our individual 
mission in life. Before throwing the dice we must make 
sure whether it is heads or tails we mean to choose. I say 
of myself that I must be a gambler for God. Fully awake 
to this redemptive purpose of God, and consciously shar¬ 
ing in his love, I must heal this stricken corner of the 
world. When Japan has grown better, some of us will 
have to pour out our energies for China. The civiliza¬ 
tion of the world had its origin in China. 

In whatever place we are, whether in some remote vil¬ 
lage far up in the mountains, or as a school-teacher in 
some tiny township on the plain, we must bestir ourselves 
and take up our Cross in that very place. If we face with 
aversion the office-ledgers we have to keep, we must re¬ 
alize that here lies the Cross for us. Only by patiently 
writing one ideograph after another is the manuscript 
ever completed. Let us advance, then, with our hearts 
filled with this consciousness of the Cross. Freed from 
every sort of error in our conceptions, let us press on, in 

* The Mennonites, driven out of Russia, went both to Brazil and 
Paraguay, but their success has been more conspicuous and their numbers 
larger in the latter country. 


Those Who Take up the Cross 135 

philosophy, in science, and in theology, and most of all 
in our realization of the Cross. 

PRAYER 

O God our Father: Show to each of us the Cross which 
he must bear. Even though it be a path of suffering which 
stretches before us, help us to press on, fully conscious of 
the Cross, even to that final moment when we draw our 
last breath. Do not let us become too accustomed to 
peaceful paths and easy level roads, but give us the con¬ 
sciousness of the Cross, and teach us to share in the re¬ 
demptive purpose of God, that we may make Japan into 
the Kingdom of God. We pray this in Jesus’ name. 
Amen. 


XII 


DIVINE LOVE MADE REAL THROUGH 
THE CROSS 

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; 
and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and 
knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; 
for God is love. I John 4:7, 8. 


“The Greeks gave us learning, the Romans law, but 
what has Christ given us? ” asks the Polish novelist Sien- 
kiewicz in his novel Quo Vadis. He goes on to answer the 
question by declaring that Christ has given love to the 
world. And the love which Christ taught was not merely 
an affection towards those to whom one is naturally at¬ 
tracted. In Japan we think of love simply as attraction 
toward those we like. I often hear people say they know 
what it is to love, without the help of Christian teaching. 
But Christ taught us to love those whom we dislike. Men 
think this supremely difficult. The lofty love of the weak, 
the poverty-stricken, the crippled, is the actual practice of 
the gospel. Though it is impossible to love these folk by 
merely human effort, we can do so by the power of God. 

“Nonsense! ” someone will say scornfully. “If one 
dislikes another, he dislikes him, and that’s that! ” Such 
folks talk about incompatibility. If a husband and wife 
quarrel constantly, the husband says, “ She irritates me. 
I can’t help it. It’s my nature; I was born that way.” 
And the wife says, “ With my temperament I cannot put 
up with a man like that! ” It is just that temperament 
136 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 137 

we are born with, however, which must be made over 
again. If we have been changed and caused to grow, we 
must make every effort to love others. This is the effort 
of life. Some will say it is unreasonable to expect it. Is 
it really possible? If not, then the nineteen-hundred- 
years-old gospel of Christ is a falsehood. 

Though it lasted but three years, the activity of Jesus 
changed the course of history. We can trace its influence 
down through these nineteen hundred years to the present. 
What, then, did Jesus do during these three years? He 
taught, he was active in doing good, and he was conscious 
of his mission. We can understand his activity, but unless 
we have come under the sway of his influence, we cannot 
understand this consciousness. 

Tolstoy had a tremendous admiration for Jesus; he re¬ 
garded him as one of the prophets, and declared that if 
the Sermon on the Mount alone had been preserved, it 
would have been quite enough. Tolstoy had no interest 
in religion till he was past fifty years of age. He won 
world-wide fame by his novel, Anna Karenina , but he con¬ 
fessed that he had committed every sort of crime that man 
could commit. He had broken every one of the Ten Com¬ 
mandments. He had committed murder, adultery, he had 
lied, he had gambled, he had neglected his parents, he had 
not worshipped God. Needless to say he had broken the 
Sabbath and profaned the name of God before others. He 
had been an idolater, joining in the cult of the worship of 
Self. But while he was thus breaking the Ten Command¬ 
ments, he had become famous, and he thought himself a 
most extraordinary man. At fifty years of age his soul be¬ 
gan to awake, and his heart to throb with pain. There was 
one thing, so he discovered, that he had never yet done, and 
that was to love. In despair and disgust with his life, he 
tried again and again to put an end to himself by taking a 


138 Meditations on the Cross 

pistol and shooting himself, but somehow he could never 
bring himself to pull the trigger. He resolved to do that 
one thing that he had never done — to love. And so he 
came back to Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the 
Mount, to love others as one’s self. 

It was because of this experience that Tolstoy revered 
the Sermon on the Mount above all other teaching. But 
had Christ only taught, without putting his teaching into 
practice, I doubt if I should admire him. It is a splendid 
thing, of course, to have the Sermon on the Mount, but 
even without that record of Christ’s teaching, Christ’s 
priceless experience upon the Cross would bring home to 
me, with tremendous force, the love of God. 

THE SEVEN WORDS FROM THE CROSS 

Christ spoke seven Words on the Cross. In a previous 
chapter I have treated them from the point of view of his 
consciousness, but here I want to discuss them in the light 
of the Social Movement. First, he said, since those who 
have put me on the Cross did it without understanding 
what it was all about, please forgive them. Second, to 
the robber he said, “ Today thou shalt be with me in Para¬ 
dise.” Third, he took care of his mother. Fourth, he sang 
the first line of the twenty-second psalm, “ My God, My 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me? ” Fifth, he said, “ I 
thirst.” Sixth, he cried, “ It is finished.” Seventh, 
“ Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Pray¬ 
ing thus he departed from this world. The more I think 
of these seven Words the more I seem to learn from them 
greater things than even from the long discourse of the 
Sermon on the Mount. 

In the first place, Christ had the experience of loving 
his enemies. At the very moment when Christ was hang¬ 
ing upon the Cross, he loved, not only those to whom he 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 139 

was bound by ties of affection, but also those for whom he 
had a natural aversion. When we use the word “ love ” 
here in Japan, we immediately think of love between the 
sexes, and we do not count as love, love which is felt to¬ 
wards those who hang one on a Cross. This love is some¬ 
thing immensely difficult to practice. Although among 
the famous men of Japanese history there are not a few 
of superior character, there are none who showed any love 
for those who subjected them to death. In our famous 
ghost stories we find a spirit of revenge. The victim is 
pictured as taking vengeance in every possible way upon 
the one who has injured him. Even Sakura Sogoro shows 
this same spirit, and a flood of resentment surged through 
him as he felt death approaching. But Christ, who felt as 
God feels, forgave his enemies for crucifying him. 

When we hear this story of Christ’s forgiveness, our 
hearts are stirred, and we wish that we, too, could forgive 
as he did. But when someone even steps on our toes in 
a streetcar, how do we act? We feel like giving him a 
piece of our mind and we grumble and say, “ What’s the 
matter with you, anyhow? Can’t you be a bit careful? ” 
Our practice is not in line with our wishful thinking. But 
Christ, who shared the heart of God, was able to say with¬ 
out a shadow of constraint, and with absolute serenity of 
spirit, “ Father, forgive them, for they do not know what 
they are doing.” 

It is this spirit which has flowed down through the years 
from Christ’s heart and has entered deeply into the hearts 
of those who long to know him, and to be like him. 
Through the power of this spirit this dark world becomes 
a world of light. Christ did not come to make good men 
into good men, but his purpose was to lift very wicked 
men into the status of children of God. This is out of the 
range of possibility from the standpoint of human accom- 


140 Meditations on the Cross 

plishment. Unless one has entered deeply into a conscious 
sharing of God’s spirit, such love towards men does not 
spring up in one’s heart. 

It is indisputable that Christ loved his enemies, for he 
possessed the love and power of God. Humanly speaking, 
it is impossible to love one’s enemies, and to talk in 
friendly fashion with a prostitute; but Christ walked the 
road together with a woman who was living in adultery. 
He took a meal with a collector of taxes, and he lived with 
a man, one of his own disciples, who was so radical as to 
be opposed to paying taxes. He loved children, though 
in that day they were chattels, and among his comrades 
were women, though the position of women in society in 
those days was very low. He drew to himself and loved 
the most worthless among the sick, the lepers, the unem¬ 
ployed, and the despairing. It is a tremendously difficult 
thing to care for and support helpless women and children 
and those whom the world counts as insignificant. Today 
in the farming villages we often find those who feel that 
women are impure and unclean, and therefore unfit to 
share in the worship of the gods. These village people, too, 
are outspoken in their abhorrence of lepers, and of women 
who fall into adultery. 

I once paid a call on the Vice-Minister of Parliamentary 
Affairs at the Department of Justice. When I asked this 
man to give some work to the unemployed, he said to me, 
“ Kagawa San, do you realize that the most pitiable men 
in Japan are the ex-convicts? ”* How are these men 

* But the government is doing something to remedy matters. Just 
as this chapter is being read, comes from Japan the issue of the Japan 
Advertiser, an English newspaper published by Americans, for September 
i, 1935, i n which appears the following headline: 

PRISON WINS PRAISE OF U. S. SOCIOLOGIST 

Visitor to Fuchu Prison (Tokyo) Impressed by Rarity of Escapes 
Despite Easy Opportunities 
Cleanliness is Lauded 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 141 

treated, as a general thing? If a man is once sentenced and 
sent to prison, he is dubbed a jail-bird by the world, even 
though he may have been committed for such a slight 
offence as stealing a piece of fish. At one time in the slum 
in which I lived there was a sort of epidemic of baby-kill¬ 
ing, that is, of allowing foster-children who had been 
placed in the homes to die of neglect. That year of 1911 
there were fourteen funerals of such foster-children, and 
in 1912 there were nineteen, for times were hard those 
years. That year a woman living in my home, the wife of 


Inmates’ Spirit of Atonement Contrasted with Attitude 
of American Convicts 

One mind seems to be at work in a Japanese prison; in an American 
prison two minds are at work in diametrically opposed directions. That, 
according to Dr. Jesse Steiner, head of the department of sociology of 
the University of Washington, appears, from first impressions, to be the 
distinction between a Japanese and an American prison. “What im¬ 
pressed me first were the comparatively low and thin walls that surround 
the prison, which would please American prisoners intent upon escape. 
I was next impressed, when I entered the prison, with the utter lack of 
odors found in most prisons. The Fuchu prison is also a fine example of 
cleanliness and appears more like a modern apartment house than a 
prison. I found the disgusting prison atmosphere lacking. Compared 
with the numerous escapes in the United States the Fuchu prison record 
of two escapes in four years is understandable, for the conditions obtain¬ 
ing there represent kindly treatment of all inmates. Particularly notice¬ 
able was the way in which the cells are laid out. Unlike the thick, strong 
double bars employed in American prisons, those of the Fuchu prison are 
small. From the American point of view, cells with such bars would per¬ 
mit easy escape. The system of outside cell construction is employed in 
the Fuchu prison, one side of the cell opening to the corridor and the other 
facing the outside, allowing the sunlight to enter. An inmate could es¬ 
cape, if he wanted to, by sawing the bars of his window. The inside cell 
construction method is generally used in American prisons, and the 
prisoner who is intent on escape would have to saw the bars of his cell 
and then the bars of the window, if any, on the outside. 

“ Food in the Fuchu prison appeared very nourishing, though it was 
simple. Strict discipline and good order seemed to be observed by the 
2,300 inmates there. . . . What I observed in the Fuchu prison seemed 
to show that the policy in Japan is educative and not punitive. Through 
strict discipline, favorable living conditions, work and educational lectures, 



142 


Meditations on the Cross 


a pirate of the Inland Sea, stole a garment worth sixteen 
sen and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, at 
hard labor. I know what difficulties these ex-convicts 
meet in trying to make a living. 

Christ loved even those who, like the ex-convicts of 
today, were pointed at with the finger of scorn. He did 
not keep his distance from these men, but mingled with 
them without the least hesitation. If I should walk along 
the street with a geisha, I would certainly be criticized 
for it. Christ was looked down upon for mixing with 
such folk. 

A woman with her hair hanging in loose disorder 
around her face anointed the feet of Christ with nard 
and wiped them with her hair. The Pharisees were indig- 


every opportunity is afforded the inmates to atone for their crimes and 
leave the prison better men. 

“ American criminals enter prisons with the idea of serving time and 
of getting out as soon as they possibly can. Japanese criminals are ap¬ 
parently in prison to atone for their crimes, for it seemed to me that the 
spirit of atonement was quietly alive. The administration apparently 
trusts that spirit, which seems to augment the comparatively weak con¬ 
struction of the cells. . . .” 

This reminds us of the 1923 earthquake in Tokyo, when the entire 
population of a certain prison in Tokyo especially for those condemned 
to life imprisonment might have escaped through the fallen walls. Not 
a man fled. The prison warden marshalled them like a regiment of sol¬ 
diers, directed them how to leave the ruined buildings, and found them 
absolutely under discipline though in the open for hours practically with¬ 
out guards. They were as loyal as the guards themselves. 

There are in Japan a number of refuges for ex-convicts conducted by 
Christians. Some will remember the work of the late Caroline Macdonald, 
who wrote A Gentleman in Prison, from the lifestory of a condemned 
man as written by himself soon after his conversion and shortly before 
his execution. Miss Macdonald had many stories of released ex-convicts 
who are living a life of usefulness and have lived down the social ostracism 
which is customary. 

All this bears on Kagawa’s emphasis on atonement and social soli¬ 
darity, suggesting him to be a product as well as a molder of his social 
process. — H. T. 



Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 143 

nant. “ What’s this? ” they grumbled. “ Do you know 
what sort of life this woman has led? ” Jesus did not re¬ 
buke them by saying, “ See here, don’t insult her! ” but 
he began to tell a story exactly to the point. “ Simon,” 
said he, “ if a man who had borrowed five hundred yen 
and one who had borrowed fifty yen both had their debts 
forgiven, which of the two would be the happier? This 
woman was in debt to God and that debt had just now 
been forgiven.” 

There is a story in the Gospel of John which tells how 
Christ dealt with a woman caught in the act of adultery, 
and helped her. The Pharisees had dragged her into the 
presence of Christ. “ Hey there,” they cried, “ you Jesus, 
look at this hussy! She’s been caught in the very act of 
adultery. Shall we stone her to death? Or what shall we 
do with her? ” Christ made no reply, but leaned over 
and drew pictures in the sand. “ See here! Aren’t you 
going to answer us? ” To this Christ replied, “ If there 
is one of you who has nothing in the least to be ashamed 
of, let him throw the first stone at the woman.” “ What’s 
that? ” “ Anyone who has nothing on his conscience — 
just wait a moment. . . . Say, you throw it. I don’t feel 
just like it.” So each one tried to pass the responsibility 
to his fellow; then one by one they began to leave the 
place till none but Christ and the woman remained. 
“ Woman,” said he, “Is there no one to accuse you?” 
“ No, no one.” “ Then neither do I judge you.” 

Christ spoke again exactly to the point. If he had been 
a novelist he would have asked the woman where and how 
and all about it, but Christ was not a novelist. He under¬ 
stood how the woman felt. Christ’s sympathies were 
many-sided. He was not a stickler for the letter of the 
law. Neither was he swayed unduly by his sympathy 
for the woman. Christ always dared to press forward 


144 Meditations on the Cross 

with intrepid courage to God’s viewpoint, and to feel as 
God feels. His attitude fills me with the deepest admira¬ 
tion. 

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DIVINE LOVE 

St. Paul made his appearance in the first century, and 
in the second century we find such men as Origen, a philos¬ 
opher of Egypt, writing books on Christian doctrine. But 
it is more interesting still to see the early Christians put¬ 
ting into practice the principles of divine love. When an 
epidemic of the plague broke out during the second cen¬ 
tury, and thousands were dying, the Christians, who had 
been suffering all sorts of ill-treatment, organized into 
a group called Paralobani, and went about taking care of 
the very people who had been dragging them off to prison. 
Later they formed a sort of cooperative society for bury¬ 
ing the dead, a task which no one else was willing to under¬ 
take. These early Christians, however, quite willingly 
undertook to serve the needs of the sick, and to bury the 
dead. The story of their loving service moves me to tears 
whenever I read it. 

There are many stories of early Christians who gave 
themselves in some such way. I have already told you of 
Gallicanus who founded the first hospital. I am amazed 
when I read of his activities. In the third century the 
practice of Christian love spread all over Europe. In the 
fourth century the first refuge for lepers in the world was 
established in the city of Antioch in Asia Minor. In the 
year 370 a.d. St. Basil, a leader in the church, began to 
help the unemployed. It was the custom in those cruel 
days for the fund for the unemployed to be used to hire 
men to fight each other to the death in the arena. A man 
called Telemachus leaped down into the arena in protest 
against the custom. He lost his life, but as a consequence 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 145 

of his act, this cruel and wicked custom ceased to be prac¬ 
ticed. 

One after another, all kinds of movements expressing 
Christian love sprang up. In France the young Christian 
community was taught works of love by its founder, 
Martin. Ireland was instructed in such enterprises by 
Patrick; Slovakia by Ulfilas. Christianity penetrated 
Europe through and through. It was not merely a philos¬ 
ophy; had it been merely that, it would not have gone so 
deep. Martin, for instance, had a great deal of sympathy 
with the serfs in their tenancy disputes. When he was 
told how the landowners were ill-treating their tenants, he 
came to the tenants’ help. To this day Martin, though a 
native of Jugoslavia, who devoted his life to preaching the 
gospel in France, is revered there as the guardian and 
patron saint of the French villages. 

The way in which Europe was led to Christ was quite 
different from the way Christianity came into Japan. It 
was through the practice of love rather than through 
philosophy. In those dark days of the Middle Ages one 
could have seen black-masked figures passing to and fro 
along the streets of the towns of Italy. They were not 
burglars, but nurses of the sick, who wore these masks so 
that they might not be recognized by others. Silently they 
went about on their errands of mercy, tending the sick, 
and then as quietly returned to their homes. One finds 
the Cross on many of the European national flags. The 
intention seems to be to commemorate those early Euro¬ 
pean Christians who died through persecution. 

We all know the story of the Crusades. Sometimes we 
Orientals are inclined to remember only the blood-thirsty 
men of Europe. But we must not forget also that there 
were many brave and yet chivalrous knights who did not 
oppress the weak but were filled with the spirit of Christ. 


146 Meditations on the Cross 

They served the needs of the weak and poverty-stricken. 
This spirit of chivalry had an historic influence upon 
Bushido, the Way of the Knight, in Japan. The Catholic 
fathers brought chivalry to our country. Before their 
coming the old records show that in the olden days in 
Japan men’s heads had been exchanged even for the silver 
trappings on the heads of the harness, but with the en¬ 
trance of Christianity into Japan things changed. The 
martyrdom of the Catholic Christians of that day intro¬ 
duced a new element into Japanese experience. 

We have already referred to Yukinaga Konishi who was 
crucified in the capital for the sake of his principles. 
Such sacrifices instilled a new spirit in Japan. A spirit of 
loyalty was developed in marked contrast to that of the 
older days when every man had his price. They learned 
to love to the uttermost, and to die for their faith. The 
Japanese creed of loyalty, that is the spirit of Bushido, is 
permeated with the spirit of Christianity. 

In Europe St. Francis and Saint Louis were outstanding 
exemplars of the love of the cross. Again in the fourteenth 
century we find Wycliffe; in the fifteenth, Savonarola; in 
the sixteenth, the Anabaptists, who carried on a sort of 
communism. Later came the Moravian brotherhood and 
in the eighteenth century the movement of John Wesley. 
All through the ages, though the ruling classes gave them¬ 
selves up to slaughtering one another, among the laborers 
and the lower strata of society movements of mutual love 
and helpfulness continued to grow. In the nineteenth 
century also, there were men who, like Livingstone and 
George Williams, practiced love in the places where they 
preached the Way. In Japan, also, Christianity will be 
no longer of value if we eliminate Christ’s teaching of love, 
the practice of love, and the consciousness of love — that 
is, the practice of the love of the Cross. The only way to 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 147 

reconstruct our society is to make Christ’s teaching, 
“ Love one another,” real and actual, here and now. 

When I think of these movements started by the dis¬ 
ciples of Christ in Europe I ask, have we in Japan the 
courage to press forward on the road of the Cross? Or 
have we not? It is not real Christianity merely to carry 
a gilt-edged Bible and hymn book to church on Sunday, 
like an upper-class person. Individual worship of God 
is not enough. The church must be transformed into a 
mutual aid organization, a society for the realization of 
Love-in-action. Shall we not actually start move¬ 
ments among ourselves for the practical expression of 
love? Having begun them, not one of us should back out. 
It was by such activities that Europe was transformed. 

To tell the truth, love is dangerous. It is a “ dangerous 
thought ” for a money lender to talk about lending money 
without interest; and the ideal of monogamy, with hus¬ 
band and wife true to each other, is too narrow a doctrine 
to suit the house of ill-fame. It is quite possible that the 
very sincerity of our love may be misunderstood, and we 
may be put to death. If you are afraid of that you had 
better not start out on this venture. 

Let us advance on this enterprise of love with sober 
hearts. Then a new reverence for life, a new respect for 
labor, will spring up in our hearts. Until Christ came, 
labor was considered the lot of slaves. In Japan, too, the 
laborer used to be little better than a slave. But when we 
learned from Christ that God himself is a laborer (John 
5:17) it revolutionized our attitude towards labor in 
Japan. Materialism makes man into a machine, into a 
commodity, into something that can be exchanged for 
money. But human beings are neither machines nor 
commodities, nor are they in the same class with money. 
We are personalities. 


148 Meditations on the Cross 

No one but Christ has ever taught reverence for per¬ 
sonality. One social theory after another comes into 
prominence, but unless they are founded on Christ they 
do not have any real reverence for personality. Russia 
has advocated an industrialized nation, but if this ideal 
is not rooted in the idea of personality, she will go astray. 
Productive industry has come into being for the sake of 
mankind, not mankind for the sake of industry. 

The only way to establish the Kingdom of God on earth 
is by Love movements. Stokes of India, though an out¬ 
standing missionary, left his work in the city and went 
barefoot into the villages where pestilence was rife. At 
first, the villagers ridiculed him, giving him rotten fruit to 
eat from a cracked bowl. But he sought out the most de¬ 
spised person in the village and loved him. Because of 
this work of love in their midst, those who had abhorred 
Christianity gradually came to admire Stokes. In the 
end they reverenced him and gave him the title of Ma¬ 
harajah, that is, Great Prince. 

A REAL CHRISTIANITY 

How did it come about that Christianity spread 
throughout Japan in the Meiji period? Perhaps it was 
partly because people read books and read the Bible. 
But this was far from being the sole reason. It was be¬ 
cause such men as Niijima, Paul Sawayama, Juji Ishii, 
and others, bore the Cross, and thus showed Christ to the 
people of Japan. Not only such as these; Christianity 
exists today in Japan because there were many saints who 
bore the Cross in unseen places. There was Sadajiro 
Hongo, who abandoned the life of an official in order to 
live the life of a beggar. There was Nobue Terajima, 
who founded an old people’s home, while earning her 
living as a nurse. There was Junbei Homma, a carpenter 


Divine Love Made Real Through the Cross 149 

who by his own efforts founded a reformatory. There 
was Mrs. Kieko Yamamuro, who though she had an un¬ 
usual education, forsook her cultured home to live a life 
of sacrifice; and Keiko Hattori, a woman who offered her 
short life for the sake of lepers. There was a host of lesser 
saints who took up the Cross, unknown to the world at 
large. Because of such as these, the movement of love 
realized in practice in remote villages and out-of-the-way 
places, has borne fruit throughout Japan. 

I pray that we may each in his own sphere — the 
teacher in the school, the nurse in the hospital — actual¬ 
ize the spirit of Christ by helping those in greater need 
than ourselves. Then the Kingdom of God will be estab¬ 
lished in Japan. We must make real and actual the love 
of God, the God of heaven and earth. If we pray, it can 
be done. It becomes possible only when we first resolve 
to follow the Cross. All the various reconstruction move¬ 
ments — the Consumers’ Cooperative movement, the 
Workers’ Education movement, the Labor movement, 
and the one for increasing production — must be founded 
upon the love of the Cross. Some will go to the fishing 
villages, others to the farming regions. Each will feel his 
own special mission. Let each of us grasp the conscious¬ 
ness of the Cross, and reveal all we can of Christ. 

Moreover, love movements cannot be undertaken sepa¬ 
rately in an individualistic scattered fashion. We must 
band ourselves together. Names make no difference 
whatever. Let all of us who love Christ gather together 
under one banner. 

In the Meiji period, people became Christians at the 
risk of their lives. But today we often find homes where, 
though the parents are Christian, the children have drifted 
away from the faith. Is it possible that the Christians of 
today are cowardly? There are many things I would like 


150 Meditations on the Cross 

to say to those homes, and I would like to speak plainly. 
I challenge you all to bestir yourselves. Gather under the 
banner of Christ! 


PRAYER 

O Father of Purity: We confess that Japan, this land 
of ours, is this very day shut up in darkness; voices of 
lamentation rise on every hand, from the farming villages 
and from the fishing villages which are in distress. We 
beseech Thee to have pity upon the hundreds of unem¬ 
ployed who wander to and fro on the streets of our cities! 
O take possession of the hearts of our youth in this day of 
trouble! Teach them plainly that Japan is to be saved 
through the Way of the Cross and through Love, and not 
by force, not by military power. Though the road, the 
Way of the Cross, which we must follow, is not a pleasant 
nor an easy path, strengthen us in our resolution to walk 
this road! Do Thou be our Shield, and help us. May 
Thy Kingdom draw near throughout Japan, in the villages, 
the mines, the factories, the schoolrooms, the offices. 
Comfort those who lie sick with pestilence in the pest- 
hospitals; those who lie helpless in tuberculosis hospitals; 
those who live in homes for lepers. We will press for¬ 
ward with boldness on Thy path; therefore, O God, make 
us Thy messengers, and grant that new movements, new 
enterprises of love may spring up among us. This we 
pray through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 


xm 


LOVING GOD IN SOCIETY 

But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, 
being made in the likeness of man . Philippians 2:7. 


There was a remarkable development of Christianity in 
Japan during the reign of the Meiji Emperor, from 1868 
to 1912. This Meiji Era was the first after the abolition 
of feudalism, while the social classes were struggling pain¬ 
fully upwards. Many individuals experienced suffering 
and therefore easily grasped the idea of redemption. The 
Christians of that day accepted the need of salvation but 
were not yet thoroughly grounded in its theoretical basis. 
Accordingly when the new theology came into Japan, 
about the middle of the Meiji period, salvation from sin 
and the idea of redemptive love were gradually rejected. 
Even in the Christian churches there were many who 
did not believe in redemption from sin. Probably there 
are people among us today who do not consider it neces¬ 
sary to think much about this, even though they do ap¬ 
preciate the self-giving sacrifice of Jesus. 

We shall never understand redemption merely with the 
intellect. The New Testament writers were not perform¬ 
ing a merely intellectual task. It was not physics or other 
natural sciences which produced the sacred canon. It was 
the deep, suffering experience of the human soul which, 
written down, became the scripture records. 

When the famous twelfth century Buddhist priest, 
151 


152 Meditations on the Cross 

Honen Shonin, preached his doctrine of “ salvation by 
the help of another/’ his first converts were two concu¬ 
bines of the retired Emperor Shirakawa. As a result 
Honen was banished for eight years. In modern times we 
have a similar example of a certain Yokotaro Nakagawa, 
of Okayama province, who thought it would be a good 
thing to import Western culture and incidentally Chris¬ 
tianity. The first person to accept this new faith was his 
own concubine, Koume Sumiya, from the depths of her 
misery. When Nakagawa heard that she had become a 
believer in Christianity, he ceased to support her. (And 
also closed the preaching place.) But she turned out to 
be a regular Mary Magdalene. She went to Kobe College 
and studied, and then for forty years pressed forward ear¬ 
nestly in the way of Christ, leading many other women to 
enter into the same experience, among whom was at least 
one of the highest social position, one Rosho Toyotake. 
Koume took as her life-motto the words, “ No other crown 
but the Cross.” She was highly respected and known as 
the “Woman Sage of Okayama Prefecture.” In the 
novel, A Japanese , which I read a while ago, one of the 
characters is styled “ a saintly concubine.” At first I 
thought the author had imagined the character, but 
learned later that he had merely depicted this Koume 
Sumiya. 

One of her contemporaries in the Okayama Christian 
community was a medical student. Through taking 
care of a pilgrim, a poor woman with two children, he had 
a deep spiritual experience and devoted his life thereafter 
to charity work. This was none other than the famous 
Juji Ishii, the first man to establish an orphanage in Japan. 
But Ishii was very much helped by Koume. When he 
was hard put to it to feed the many children in his orphan¬ 
age, he used always to go up the mountain to pray. It 


Loving God in Society 


i53 

was Koume who would then immediately start out to col¬ 
lect funds for Ishii. On my visits to Okayama prefecture 
today I find a comparatively large number of Christians in 
its towns and rural districts, and most of them have been 
influenced directly or indirectly toward the Christian 
faith by these two personalities. Thereby the possibilities 
of the actual practice of love have been impressed afresh 
upon me. Theoretical discussions of “ social science ” 
have their fervent advocates, who forget to redeem the 
individual from sin; but I cannot help but ponder upon 
how many people Koume, the redeemed concubine, was 
able to bring under the influence of Christ! 

THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIENCE AND THE 
SENSE OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 

I am conscious of the religion of atoning love. The 
gospel of Jesus is easily grasped by him who knows his 
sin. But when as in this materialistic present even the 
killing of another human being is not thought of as sin, 
Christ is hard to understand. We admit that it is wrong 
to kill an individual but we do not think it wrong to kill in 
war. That is, as individuals we are conscious, but we are 
not yet fully conscious of the Whole. We do not have the 
consciousness that Christ possessed of the God of heaven 
and earth, and the sober thought of seeking forgiveness. 
In this present age of machine civilization, man also is a 
machine. He declines all responsibility.* 

There are three stages in the development of conscious¬ 
ness — unconsciousness, semi-consciousness and full con¬ 
sciousness. From unconsciousness to semi-conscious 
awakening, and then onward to full consciousness — the 
Scriptures record the development of the human race, and 
it is a long story. The Scriptures are a laboratory, a re- 
* For this use of the word “ responsibility,” cf. footnote on p. 64. 


154 Meditations on the Cross 

search field, for mankind. Here is the tale of man’s fail¬ 
ures and rebellions, all the way from the Garden of Eden 
down to the Roman Era, and of God’s desire to save him, 
crystallized into a written record. Since at first man was 
unconscious, there was a shameful age, that of the Judges. 
In that dark day, since it was necessary to give men con¬ 
sciousness of sin, that they might have forgiveness, and 
since it would not do to kill human beings, it became the 
thing to do to offer a lamb by way of apology to God. 
That is the atonement. Although there are among us 
those who say, “That was superstition! What possible 
effect could the killing of a lamb have? ” The custom 
arose from a real and deep need of the soul. 

In looking up the history of Greek morals I have read 
Development of Greek Religion by Fannel, an expert on 
Greek civilization, and have learned that until the ninth 
century b.c. even in that wonderful civilization of Greece 
it was not thought wrong to commit murder. But when 
conscience awakened, the more it was aroused the more 
necessary became salvation. The longing emerged to 
wash away the blood of the person who had been slain. 
The Greeks believed in a religion of nature and wor¬ 
shipped the sun. Later they acquired Persian religion, 
and would go to the mountains and make confession of 
their sins all night long. This gradually became a religion 
of conversion, the religion of Dionysius. And from that 
stage they came at last to believe in Christ alone. “ The 
time was fulfilled ” as Mark has it in i: 15. By the second 
century b.c. the Greek Gnostics were teaching a con¬ 
science religion and the need of a savior. 

In Old Testament times the people received atonement 
through the blood of a lamb, but as they passed from semi¬ 
consciousness to consciousness, they came to feel that “ I 


Loving God in Society 


155 

as a human being must offer up my own blood; ” (that is, 
redemption-consciousness). “ And not for my own sins 
alone, for the sins of others have some connection with my 
own faults” — this because one’s own consciousness has 
become fully awakened. Christ’s dying as a substitute for 
many sinners is, like the backing of a promissory note, an 
expression of the sense of social solidarity. Without a 
consciousness of responsibility for the sins of others, we 
can never have a sense of social solidarity. 

The sense of joint responsibility penetrates the con¬ 
sciousness of those who have any experience of paying for 
the blunders of others, but even these forget the people 
with whom they are not immediately concerned. But 
Jesus had practically attained to the full consciousness of 
God, and thought of his responsibility toward Chinese, 
Koreans and even Japanese without discrimination — all 
are sons of Abraham! And if we follow this thought 
through, our eyes will be opened to the fact that we have 
responsibility for even the most depraved, the geisha, or 
women of the licensed quarters. It is when we awaken to 
this fact that we truly believe in God. Those who have not 
yet had their eyes opened to this consciousness of the 
Whole are not yet awake to social solidarity. 

There are nine thousand or more delinquents annually 
in the city of Tokyo. Who is responsible for these nine 
thousand young people? How many are there who are 
conscious of any responsibility for their sins? Those who 
feel no concern have not yet understood the Cross. Those 
who have come into a full consciousness are atonement¬ 
conscious. To set about to redeem these delinquents is to 
share consciously in the atonement. I must become as 
awake as God himself to my responsibility for all living 
creatures in the universe, and realize the fact that I have 


156 Meditations on the Cross 

a relation to them all. We cannot comprehend this with 
our modern theology. This atonement-consciousness was 
very clear in Masahisa Uemura.* 

From my experience of living among the poor, I am 
opposed to the idea that it is enough to change their out¬ 
ward environment, or to distribute material goods or cash 
among them. The economic aspect is only one phase of 
human activity, and we can never reorganize society from 
that standpoint alone. The faults of men must be swept 
away. Social reconstruction is impossible without seeking 
first a deep spiritual awakening. 

THE UNITY OF THE RELIGION OF CONSCIENCE 
AND THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 

In Russia today they deny the validity of all religion, 
especially of the Christian religion. They are not suc¬ 
ceeding that way. Nor do we know of any successful at¬ 
tempt anywhere to disregard the thousands of years of the 
history of conscience. The development of conscience and 
of the social movement must go on together. 

In a selfish movement Christ’s teachings are meaning¬ 
less. It is not enough to surrender our sins to Christ; we 
must shoulder responsibility for others. It is at this point 
that conscience-religion and the social movement become 
one and the same. 

The Japan of today which in former days drifted into 
the currents of modernism, will probably be more and 
more wrought up over the problem of sex. Unless Japan 
can have a pure attitude toward sex, like that of God, she 
will perish. 

When the festival celebrating the ascension to the 
throne of the present Emperor was held in 1928, for fear 
of some untoward incident the police interned about sixty- 

* A famous Japanese Christian minister of a former generation. 


Loving God in Society 


i57 

nine thousand insane persons, but that was only part of 
our insane population. According to a survey made of 
eighty-six villages by the Department of Public Health 
of the Home Office, nineteen out of every thousand per¬ 
sons are suffering from mental diseases. If this proportion 
holds true of the whole of Japan, there must be some one 
hundred and twenty thousand insane in the whole country. 
According to Dr. Kure, twenty-five out of every thousand 
are insane. This would give us at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand mental patients in this country. If this is 
true, insanity is increasing at the rate of six per cent per 
year. The chief causes of mental diseases, especially of 
the type which results in palsy and in mental weakness, 
are syphilis and alcoholism. 

Suppose an era of communism should come! A com¬ 
munism which means merely a communism in the produc¬ 
tion of material things is not a real communism. Unless 
people come to think of the sins of others as their own sin, 
it is impossible to bring about real social reconstruction. 
Without the desire for a clean conscience there can be no 
social movement. It takes three men to carry on com¬ 
munist propaganda—one carries a pistol, one a dagger, 
and one pastes bills. It is said that communists have 
killed policemen in Osaka, Kobe and Wakayama. How 
can we be indifferent in the face of such atrocities? 

In their violence, the communists utterly disregard con¬ 
science. At the beginning of the Russian movement, such 
men as Bakunin did carry on enterprises which expressed 
love for humanity, but later they ceased that sort of activ¬ 
ity, and instead they formed secret societies and fell to 
making plots which in the end cost them their lives. Ger¬ 
many suffers one disorder after another until she is 
changed into an inferno before our very eyes. Therein we 
also share responsibility. 


158 Meditations on the Cross 

When we commit ourselves wholly to our love for so¬ 
ciety, and join the ranks of the lower classes, we must al¬ 
ways keep a clear consciousness of atoning love. To share 
in the redemptive purpose of atoning love and in the 
movement for social reconstruction, we must have the 
Christ-consciousness. We find it explained in the Scrip¬ 
tures in various ways that God did not create man and 
cause him to develop a physiological body, only to cast 
him aside for time and eternity as morally worthless. 
When we meditate on this truth in relation to our own 
souls, we realize the significance of Christ, the One who 
died on the Cross, and the realization of this profound 
truth brings us into a personal and intimate relationship 
with him. The ninth chapter of Hebrews records the his¬ 
tory of the consciousness of atonement, from earliest 
times, when civilization was unknown. The New Testa¬ 
ment, with its full-orbed consciousness of God, reveals 
God’s intention to carry the debts of mankind himself. 
Even when men fail, God accepts this as his own failure. 
This is the overflowing grace of God. Whenever I think 
of it, it fills my heart with joy. 

THE LIFE OF AN ACROBAT 

It is now almost twenty-four years since I received 
baptism. It was in a Christian preaching-place in Toku¬ 
shima, where among the group of Christians there was at 
that time a lame man by the name of Hosokawa. His 
father had been a doctor in Osaka. When Hosokawa was 
in the third year of middle school, he went to the bad, left 
home, and went up to Tokyo. There he became a tight¬ 
rope walker and acrobat. As such he crossed the ocean 
to America, travelled about England, and Germany, and 
Austria. One day, when he was about to give a perform¬ 
ance in the city of Vienna, he did not feel as well as usual 


Loving God in Society 


i59 

and in the midst of a wonderful feat of tight-rope walking, 
in which he prided himself, he fell from the rope. As luck 
would have it, the net beneath had not been securely 
strung that day, with the result that he struck his back¬ 
bone, and was seriously injured. 

For a long time he lay in the Roman Catholic hospital 
in Vienna, but made no recovery. At last, when he had 
become completely paralyzed, he was sent back to his 
home in Kobe, with his passage paid. On arriving in 
Japan, he felt too much ashamed to go to his father. He 
could not walk; what was he to do? In his abject misery, 
he began to beg. He could crawl along for a distance of one 
or two blocks in an hour. He thought that if he could 
only visit the famous image of Kobo Daishi at Tatsue in 
the island of Shikoku, he might be cured. With this hope, 
he crossed the straits over to the city of Tokushima in 
Shikoku. Day after day he kept on crawling along in the 
direction of the famous image. But when at last he ar¬ 
rived there, he was disappointed. The Buddhist priest 
beat him and threw him out. 

He was beaten but not defeated. “ All right,” he said 
to himself, “I will go and ask help at the Christian 
church. I can never forget the kindness shown me in the 
hospital at Vienna. There must be a kind Christian 
church somewhere in Japan, too. I will go and find it 
myself.” So he started out and after a journey of three 
or four days, he came to Tokushima, and Dr. Logan 
helped him. After awhile he began to recover and was 
able to stand on his feet. He began to go about the streets 
with a little cart, selling cooked sweet potatoes. For nine 
years he lived the life of faith, with his heart filled with 
joy, until finally he died as a result of his former injuries. 

This man’s story taught me a deep lesson. Life here on 
this earth is like this man’s career. We are continually 


160 Meditations on the Cross 

having to meet the hard blows of life, and we go about in 
a futile search for help, for salvation, but there is no sal¬ 
vation except in Christ. When I saw this man and heard 
his story, I determined not to travel the road of life which 
he had followed, but from the outset to travel the road of 
the Cross. 

Some say that they have no faults, that they have never 
failed; but it is only Christ who has attained perfection. 
And it was he, the Sinless One, who bore the sins of men 
and travelled the road of the Cross. We, too, must take 
this way of the Cross. We must live in redeeming love. 
Therein lies the synthesis between redeeming love and the 
love of society. 


PRAYER 

Heavenly Father: Teach us of the privileged classes, 
whose lives are filled with every blessing, to take a step 
forward into the road of redemptive love. Although Je¬ 
sus himself was without sin, he took the faults of men upon 
himself, and carried the Cross of redemptive love. We 
have not sincerely undertaken the life of faith. We idle 
our days away in listlessness. We are unconscious or 
only half-conscious of life’s challenge. Awaken us, O 
God, that we may with sincerity carry the burdens of 
others. Grant that we may not be content to live empty 
lives, seeking only the pleasure that each day brings. 
Cause us to advance to the Cross. All society lies under 
a shadow, and we are apprehensive over the future of 
Japan. Our consciences are clouded. Awake us, O God, 
to our responsibility for sufferers in the depths of misery. 
Inspire us to undertake to save them, in the Spirit of Je¬ 
sus, till at length all mankind will join in singing praises 
to Thy name. And this I pray in the name of our Lord 
Jesus. Amen. 


XIV 


THE CROSS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, 
even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 
John 15:12, 13. 


Why was it that Jesus had to choose the Cross? Let us 
reflect on this point. 

There are some Western scholars who declare that 
there are two systems of Christianity, the Pauline system 
of thought and the Christ system of thought. I do not 
agree with this view. Christ could not definitely declare 
himself to be the Christ until he had hung upon the Cross. 
There was something which he, as long as he was alive, 
could not explain to others. When Peter confessed to his 
belief and said, “ Thou art the Christ,” Jesus did not say, 
“ Yes, that is so.” He told Peter that his confession was 
inspired by God but to keep silent about it. And then he 
went on to say that in a short time he himself would be 
crucified. Why did Jesus thus over and over again talk 
in such an incomprehensible way? 

When John the Baptist sent his messengers from prison, 
to ask, “Art thou the Messiah?” Jesus replied, “The 
blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life 
and the poor have good tidings preached to them.” Why 
could he not say, “Yes, it is true, lam”? 

161 


162 Meditations on the Cross 

There are two mountain peaks in Christ’s path to the 
Cross: one, when John was put into prison, and the second, 
the death of John. Christ began his work immediately 
after John had been put into prison. It was then that 
John questioned him. Christ replied, “ Look at the facts, 
see what is happening.” But he did not plainly assert 
his claims. The true Christ would certainly be a Christ 
who suffered on the Cross. He could not rest assured 
of his Messiahship until he had fulfilled the prophecies of 
the Twenty-Second Psalm and the fifty-third chapter of 
Isaiah. He could not command men to worship him. 
Jesus realized that he would become the Christ only when 
he had completely offered up his life. It was because of 
this conviction that he commanded Peter, at the time of 
his confession, to guard the secret, for he had not yet 
brought his work to completion through suffering death. 

The second crisis occurred when John was given the 
death penalty. His disciples, as soon as they had buried 
him in Samaria, came in all haste to Christ. There were 
about five thousand of them, and this revolutionary crowd 
wanted to put Jesus forward as their leader. Strauss 
makes the assertion that the story here contains material 
which has been invented, based on the traditions handed 
down about Elijah, which is here clumsily interjected into 
the record. But in the fifteenth verse of the sixth chapter 
of John it is recorded that the crowd was about to take 
him by force and make him king. The gospels of Mat¬ 
thew, Mark and Luke were written earlier, and it is quite 
certain that they deleted all reference to this incident 
which bordered on insurrection, because it would have been 
dangerous at that time to record it, as it would have 
brought them into suspicion from the administrative offi¬ 
cials. But the Gospel of John was written in Patmos; 
John wrote without the least fear of administrative offi- 


The Cross and Social Life 163 

cials. He went on to write the Revelation in the same 
unstudied style. Although persecution was at its height, 
he was utterly fearless and wrote without reserve or 
anxiety as to the outcome. 

Christ said, “If you do not eat my flesh and drink my 
blood, there can be no true spiritual revolution.” He de¬ 
clared that it was not sufficient to be concerned with the 
problems of the Mosaic law, which are only of the flesh, 
nor was it sufficient to be satisfied with the miracle of the 
loaves. The crowd was disappointed. They had dis¬ 
cerned, at the cost of great pains, that he was the Son of 
David, but when they discovered that Jesus did not have 
any intention of leading an insurrection, they left him 
and went away. Christ withdrew, also, from this party 
of revolutionaries, and went away on a journey, until their 
ardor should cool. 

The biographers of Jesus pass over this point without 
comment, but to me it is a significant fact. 

On his return from that journey, he secretly visited the 
eastern shores of the lake where many Greeks were living, 
and upon this a crowd of four thousand came together. 
I agree with the higher critics of Germany who hold that 
it is a mistake to think that the same incident is reported 
twice, in the stories of the feeding of the five thousand 
and of the four thousand. It is interesting to note that the 
group of five thousand later decreased to four thousand; 
with the cooling of the fever of their enthusiasm, their 
numbers decreased twenty per cent. But Jesus avoided 
this second crowd and set out to roam about from place to 
place. 

It was at this time that the confession of Caesarea Phi¬ 
lippi took place. Christ felt that because he had forsaken 
the people, his popularity had decreased. So he asked 
them, “Well, what does everyone think about me? I 


Meditations on the Cross 


164 

suppose my popularity has suffered a good deal.” His 
disciples replied that the crowd thought he was either 
John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. 
Then he asked, “ And what do you think? ” Peter 
answered, “ You are the Son of God.” “ But you must 
not tell anyone now,” replied Jesus. “ I am soon to be 
crucified.” 

While the disciples had kept out of the revolutionary 
movement, yet they had the idea that at some other time 
they would lead a revolt, and they were greatly disap¬ 
pointed at the reply. Even then on the way home some of 
the disciples talked of nothing else but of becoming min¬ 
isters of state in the kingdom. Jesus rebuked them by 
saying, “ If anyone of you wishes to be great, let him 
become a servant.” And again when the two sons of 
Zebedee wanted him to call down fire from heaven to 
destroy the Samaritans who would not let the Jews pass 
through their village, Jesus replied that he had not come 
to destroy but to save. And yet again he told the mother 
who requested that her two sons be made the chief min¬ 
isters of state, “ I have not come to command the service 
of others; I am on my way to death.” Thereupon Judas 
in desperation was driven at length to treachery. But 
Christ demonstrated his teaching by himself washing his 
disciples’ feet. 


IT IS FINISHED 

The material recorded by Matthew and Mark was fur¬ 
nished by Peter, and because he had fled, he did not know 
exactly what words Jesus spoke while on the Cross, with 
the exception of the cry, “ Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani.” 
But there were women standing near the foot of the Cross, 
and Luke, basing his record on the account given by them, 
reports three utterances of Christ, in which he forgives 


The Cross and Social Life 165 

the multitude, pardons the thief, and offers the prayer by 
which he commits his own spirit to God. As John stood 
with the women, he also reports three utterances, that is, 
the words whereby Jesus entrusted his mother to John, 
told of his thirst, and the final cry, “It is finished.” 
Moreover, John comments on each word, saying, “ that 
the Scripture might be fulfilled.” 

We should note carefully these words, “ It is finished.” 
What was finished? I think it means that the Christ who 
was in very truth the Christ, who had taken upon himself 
all suffering — who, as foretold in the fifty-third chapter 
of Isaiah, had borne all that had to be borne — had per¬ 
fected his work. In direct contrast to the conception 
which the disciples held, that is, a messiah of worldly 
glory, he chose to be a Christ who endured suffering. 
“ The hour is come that the Son of man should be glori¬ 
fied. Verily, verily I say unto you, except a grain of wheat 
fall into the ground, it abideth by itself alone, but if it die, 
it beareth much fruit.” (John 12:23, 24.) Christ was to 
be glorified, not by turning to revolution, but by enduring 
the suffering of the Cross. 

Even the Christian church of today misunderstands 
Christ here. The purpose of our having mystical experi¬ 
ence is not that we may achieve our own personal satisfac¬ 
tion, but that we may succor the poor, help those who are 
in trouble, and educate the masses. If this were not 
Christ’s teaching, we could not challenge the terrific power 
of this capitalistic civilization. If we are to allow this 
world to perish, we are not involved in any difficulties; but 
God loved this world enough to send his only Son. We 
are not to separate ourselves from the world; that is Bud¬ 
dhist teaching. We must keep on fighting until the very 
last slave, the last prostitute, is saved. 

In the seventh century the Christian church allowed 


166 Meditations on the Cross 

idolatry to enter the church, and because of this mistake 
she was unable to withstand the onslaughts of Moham¬ 
medanism which began to invade the world. Because the 
church had permitted image worship to creep in, she had 
to bow before this low-grade, loveless religion, which is 
full of error. But Mohammedanism has no social con¬ 
sciousness, whereas the Old Testament makes the Hebrew 
race its center, and is full of the ideas of love and service. 
The tragedy still remains that there are two hundred mil¬ 
lion souls in this world today held captive by this religion 
whose foundation principle is conflict, simply because the 
Christian church was asleep. 

Again in the nineteenth century, because the church had 
allowed itself to be absorbed in argument and theory, the 
masses threw it aside, and turned eagerly to communism. 
If we had had the love of St. Francis, they would never 
have turned to communism in this way. But sad to say, 
Christianity became dogma and ceased to be ethics. 
Therefore communism sprang up, which is identical with 
Mohammedanism in its being based on violence. Mo¬ 
hammedanism is still strong in China, where its followers 
band together and live a strongly communistic life. The 
Marxists, again, have a materialistic dialectic which is 
similar to that taught in the Koran. The Christian church 
has had to meet these crises because she practiced idolatry 
and because she lacked the practical expression of Chris¬ 
tian love. 

If the Christian church does not take note of this fact, 
and if she does not change her ways and actually practice 
Christian love, and thus meet the needs of the proletarian 
masses, a wave of Marxism will sweep over the world, 
which will capture hundreds of millions of people, and 
Christianity will have to submit to oppression for hun¬ 
dreds of years. 


The Cross and Social Life 167 

This was not Christ’s way. He chose a religion of suf¬ 
fering and realized it by actually living it out. 

FROM IDEAL TO ACTION 

It is not enough to have ideals. We must translate them 
into action. The reason that Marxism attracts men is 
because it has the power to practice its teachings. The¬ 
ology is all right, but there is no strength in a theology 
which does not become apparent in practice. This is the 
weakness of the nineteenth century. Together with the 
rapid advance in knowledge, there must be a living out of 
principles in action. In the parable of the judgment in 
the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, we learn that it is 
useless to protest that one has high ideals or a flair for the 
mystical. Those who are given a place among the right¬ 
eous are those who help the poor to prosper, who visit 
those who are weeping in prison, who feed the hungry. 
Christ said that it was for such acts as these that those 
who have performed them are given a place among the 
good. It was not enough to say, “ Lord, Lord,” merely 
with the lips. 

It comes down simply to this — it is not enough to be a 
nominal Christian. Look at the proletariat! Are they 
not suffering? We must do something to help them. How 
shall we take this parable? Do we not hear in it a solemn 
voice of warning? 

DOCTRINE OR PRACTICE 

The Middle Ages displayed two tendencies, the Fran¬ 
ciscan and the Dominican. One movement arose in Italy, 
the other in Spain. The Franciscan made love actual in 
practice. The Dominican emphasized doctrine. The in¬ 
fluence of these two movements is active in the world 
today. What, then, ought we to do? Should we live the 


168 Meditations on the Cross 

Christ-life in actual practice, or is it enough to subscribe 
to a doctrine? The only value that there is in doctrine is 
that it is an explanation of one’s actions. It is easy enough 
to stay in one’s study, but to live with beggars, and to as¬ 
sociate with day-laborers, that is difficult. And while we 
shut ourselves up in our studies, the ideals of Marxism 
and Mohammedanism sweep the world with tremendous 
force, until the world is convulsed with violence. 

God was actualized in the daily life of Jesus. We, too, 
must press forward along the path of Christ, which leads 
through suffering. I want to realize the suffering of the 
thousands of unemployed. Some of us who are working 
in connection with the Kingdom of God Movement are 
giving up one meal out of the twenty-one meals of a week 
and are sending the money to the unemployed. If all the 
people in the country were to give up a meal a week, all 
the unemployed could be helped. But because, like Peter, 
we try to flee from the Cross, violent revolution breaks out. 

Let me tell you about one of my friends, Motoichiro 
Takahashi. He was formerly a minister of the Congrega¬ 
tional Church in Japan. He came to Tokyo and began 
to distribute tickets for medical examination to the poor. 
When he graduated with first honors from the Doshisha 
middle school, his friend Senji Yamamoto held second 
place. When in later years Yamamoto was killed by a 
gangster, Takahashi said that he would take his revenge 
like a Christian, and went around distributing food tickets 
to the poor. He earned only a yen a day, and had work 
only once in a while, and at length even that work stopped. 
He moved into the top of a tenement in the Fukugawa 
slums. But even that did not satisfy him, and he began 
work for the people in the “ Okan ” district where there 
are many cheap lodging houses. In this district, the peo¬ 
ple who have no shelter build a fire and spend the night 


The Cross and Social Life 169 

warming themselves around it. There are often seventy 
or eighty people encamped around the fire, and what is 
even worse, along the edge of the land which was being 
made at that time by filling in a shallow part of Tokyo bay, 
there were some who were even living in caves. He put 
up a tent, and took in these men. Some earnest Christians 
who were in the lumber business contributed some lumber 
at a very low figure to floor the tents, and with such help 
Takahashi was able to accommodate some three hundred 
men. 

Because this was a practical demonstration of the true 
love of Christ, the Tokyo newspapers gave it publicity, 
and Matsui Sho-wo, a well-known playwright, wrote a 
play dramatizing it, and presented it on the stage at the 
Hibiya Public Hall. It was only a small thing to do, yet 
to put up the tents, to work among the men organizing 
temperance societies, and at the end to fall stricken by 
tuberculosis of the lungs, this was a valuable expression of 
Christ’s love.* 

Although we take the Cross upon our shoulders, we fail 
to bear it meekly and silently. I wish we might be am¬ 
bitious to lead the life of the Cross in quietness. Let us 
examine ourselves to see whether we are leading the life 
of the Cross. 

PRAYER 

O God, our Father: We seek Thy guidance in this time 
of great economic change. We confess the sins of our age: 
that there is struggle between the capitalists and the pro¬ 
letariat in our society today; that there is strife between 
the peoples of different nations. The poor are wandering 

* American readers may remember Mr. Takahashi as the peace poet, 
some of whose many poems on peace were published in the Christian 
Century and other journals soon after the Manchurian incident in the fall 
of 1931. 


170 Meditations on the Cross 

about our streets, and social work and social movements 
are powerless to help them. In truth, our hearts are filled 
with shame at the plight in which we find ourselves. 

Teach us to meditate upon the life of Christ, and to 
remember how he threw his life away for the race of 
men. As we contemplate his passion and the blood which 
he shed, may Thy Spirit work deeply in our hearts. 
Strengthen us that we may live lives worth while, be it in 
ever so small a way. Inspired by the love of Christ, teach 
us to fling aside all desire for selfish advantage and for 
group privilege. Do Thou teach us, O Christ, to take up 
the Cross and to serve society. In the country, in fishing 
villages, on the sea, in the slums, on the streets, in the 
schoolroom, wherever Thou dost place us, deepen our reso¬ 
lution and cause us to bear the Cross and walk in Thy 
way. Do Thou use us, we pray, to Thy heart’s content. 
In Christ we ask it. Amen. 


XV 


THE CROSS AND ETHICAL LIFE 

That I may know Him, and the power of His resur¬ 
rection , and the fellowship of His sufferings, being 
conformed unto His death. Philippians 3:10, 11. 


The Cross was not suicide. It was brought about by a 
strange providence, through the social forces of the day. 
It is recorded at the close of the eleventh chapter of John 
that the Council of Seventy Elders treated Christ as 
though he were a public nuisance; they announced pub¬ 
licly that they were seeking for him. This made possible 
the treachery of Judas Iscariot, who disclosed Jesus’ 
whereabouts for a sum of money. But Christ could have 
fled, had he desired to do so. The Gospel of John is based 
upon material supplied by the administrative officials; 
read it to know the political causes of the Crucifixion. 
There are eight references in it to the killing of Jesus, or 
to the policy of suppression adopted towards him. (John 
5:18; 7:1, 2; 7:3; 7:44; 8:59; 10:31; 10:39; 11:530 
In every recorded instance, Christ could have made his 
escape, had he chosen to do so. 

For Christ was not merely a king. He founded his 
kingdom on love, not on strife. He chose the Cross be¬ 
cause he had the Spirit of God which builds the Kingdom 
of God, and the will to bear the Cross. From a social 
viewpoint, therefore, he stands out, a king indeed. 

But that is not all. Christ also holds a place as a 
171 


172 Meditations on the Cross 

prophet in the ethical world. He was one of the prophets, 
and did his work from the prophetic point of view. He 
proclaimed a revision of the law of Moses. He was clearly 
conscious that he was greater than Solomon or Jonah. He 
was conscious of his own authority. “ I say unto you,” 
said he, “ yet those who follow me will not entirely discard 
these former teachings.” 

It is easy to forget self-discipline when we are thinking 
only of society. When someone is watching us, we make 
an effort to improve ourselves, but when no one is looking 
at us, we relax our efforts. When we engage in social 
work, we are apt to fail in our inner life, to become'osten¬ 
tatious or to assume a pose, and thus to admit a serious 
shortcoming into the inmost depths of our nature. Christ 
did not fall short in this way. From the beginning to the 
end, he kept looking to the Cross. Socrates, Buddha, Con¬ 
fucius were all great men, but Christ was not simply a 
prophet-teacher like these men. He had the religious 
consciousness that as a high priest he must die for his 
people. This conviction led Christ to the Cross. Christ 
took his stand not as a moral critic, but as one possessing 
the consciousness of God, who purposes to save mankind. 

Yet here I would like to discuss the moral teachings of 
Christ. He possessed a morality of the highest standard. 
Moreover, his morality was different from that of other 
men. 

the revision of the mosaic law 

Christ’s ethical teachings are of two types — the direct 
teachings, such as we find in the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the indirect teachings, such as are contained in the 
parables. In the direct teachings there are many precepts 
for individuals; here we find a revision of the teachings of 
Moses. On the other hand, the parables are for the most 


The Cross and Ethical Life 173 

part social in their implications. The first four of the Ten 
Commandments have reference to our duties toward God, 
and the last six to our duties toward mankind. Christ re¬ 
vised this order first of all. The Sermon on the Mount 
begins with our duty to other men, and the teaching that 
we should walk the way with prayer and fasting does not 
appear until nearly the middle. Since God is our Father, 
we do not need to use many repetitions in worshipping 
him; when we worship him, we must carry in our hearts 
mercy and compassion. In this way Christ taught a re¬ 
vision of the Mosaic law from the religious viewpoint. 
Moses taught that one must respect one’s father and 
mother, but Christ expounded the way of the “ greater 
filial piety,” that is, the love of God. Where the law 
taught, “ Thou shalt not kill,” he taught, “ Do not be 
angry.” With regard to the command, “ Do not commit 
adultery,” he warned men not to look at a woman with 
lustful desire. Instead of “ Thou shalt not steal,” he 
taught, “ Give freely.” In the place of “ Do not bear false 
witness,” he advised men to put themselves into the other’s 
place. Instead of “ Thou shalt not covet,” he told them to 
surrender everything to God. 

If this were all, Christ’s teaching would not surpass 
other codes, for it would consist of a negative morality, 
teaching “ Do not do this ” and “ Do not do that.” It was 
when he said, “ Love your enemy,” that Christ’s ethical 
revolution started. Not only did he revise the Mosaic law 
and make the moral life a matter of conscience; not only 
did he take that which was exterior and make it a matter 
of the inner life; the very foundation of his system is the 
will to save others, the great conviction that one must 
save his fellowmen. The feeling that one must save — 
that is, the feeling of the Cross — flows deep beneath it all. 

Because one is eager to take up one’s cross and help his 


174 Meditations on the Cross 

fellow, one can give the second mile of service; and when 
one is struck upon the right cheek, one is impelled to offer 
the other. 

It is the ordinary thing to return evil for evil. There 
is no will to save in the “ Way of Benevolence ” of Con¬ 
fucius. I went to China in 1931, and while there I made 
a study of Confucius. I visited the ancestral shrine, and 
examined the records minutely. At forty-two Confucius 
became the Minister of Agriculture of the country of Ro, 
then the Minister of Justice, and when he was past sixty 
Prime Minister. Twice during that time he got rid of his 
enemies by killing them. His benevolence was unbend¬ 
ing and unrelenting, and did not surpass that of the Old 
Testament. But Christ had the love which wills-to-save, 
and that sort of love is flexible. 

Confucius standardized ordinary human customs; but 
Christ showed that if God’s power reinforced that of man, 
a more than human will-to-save might bring about a life of 
daily love. Ordinarily this eludes our understanding. 
Not even a sparrow can fall to the ground but the Father 
permits it. How much more does his love seek to save the 
perishing! It was that love which Christ set forth. In 
every one of his teachings it is revealed. 

SOCIAL ETHICS 

The parables of Christ are of three types, and come 
from three periods in Christ’s life. Each one of the three 
periods in Christ’s ministry has its special characteristics; 
they are, the Galilean period, the Perean period, and the 
Judean period. The parables of the Galilean period, 
which are found in the fourth chapter of Mark and the 
thirteenth chapter of Matthew, reveal a creative spirit. 
The growth of the seed, the story of the spread of the 
leaven, the mustard seed, the story of the pearl, all put 


The Cross and Ethical Life 175 

great emphasis on creative development. There is abound¬ 
ing energy, but the conscious desire to save is not yet 
clear. 

But when Christ begins to look forward to the Cross, 
there is a sudden change in the tone of the parables. This 
is apparent in Luke. The story of the Good Samaritan 
in the tenth chapter, the parable of the fig-tree in the thir¬ 
teenth chapter, the Prodigal Son in the fifteenth chapter, 
illustrate this new note. 

The story of the Prodigal Son sets forth the beautiful 
foundation principle of redemption. The older brother 
has the unbending type of morality which Confucius 
teaches, and persists in treating bad people as bad. But 
the father welcomes the wrong-doer with tears of love, for 
his love is more flexible; and he says, “ No, no, my son; 
let us forgive him.” This demonstrates the difference be¬ 
tween the ordinary run of simple morality and the mo¬ 
rality of Christ. His morality is founded on a conscious 
desire to save others. 

In the Perean period of Christ’s ministry this redemp¬ 
tive element grows clearer as time progresses. If this ele¬ 
ment is missing, Christian teaching becomes Pharisaical. 
It forgets to strive to save the wayward youth, the dis¬ 
charged prisoner, and others of that type. It attempts to 
evade the Cross. Are we not fleeing from the Cross? Are 
we not lacking in a conscious yearning to save others? 
Are we day by day bearing the burden of the sin of our 
families and our groups? 

The parables of the Judean period teach that one should 
guard the precious values which have been previously won. 
The story of the servants who added to the value of the 
sums of money entrusted to them, the parable of the ten 
virgins, five of whom did not let their lights go out, the 
story of the tenants who refused to pay tribute, all teach 


176 Meditations on the Cross 

the guarding or preservation of values. The parable of 
the practice of Christian love in the stern twenty-fifth 
chapter of Matthew is one of these, and furthermore, it 
contains within it a social ethic. In the twentieth chapter 
of Matthew, the story of the laborers in the vineyard, we 
find a great deal to help us in solving the problems of labor 
and of unemployment. It teaches that a minimum wage 
should be established first of all in order to give security 
of livelihood; and it teaches that work should be given to 
those who do not have it, and it guarantees equality of 
personality. When those laborers who were hired first 
complained that their wages were insufficient, and asked 
for more, the master rebuked them. 

John Ruskin, in his essay, “ Unto This Last,” points 
out very clearly that this principle, the equal value of each 
individual, more than any other, is the Christian solution 
of the problem. But the one who has made a study of this 
principle, and has taken his stand on it, is Gandhi. The 
most worthless person, even a beggar, is a child of God, 
and therefore we must guard and preserve his life, his 
work, and his personality. But are we doing this? Are we 
giving life and work and character to those who labor? 

The practice of the parables must be upon the Cross as 
a foundation. Individualistic precepts do not remain 
individualistic in them, but point the way to the redemp¬ 
tion of society. In this these parables surpass the teach¬ 
ings of Buddha, of Confucius and Socrates. In that it 
boldly ventures that which cannot be accomplished with¬ 
out God, Christ’s morality is eternally young, new, and 
indestructible. 


CRIME AND SALVATION 

In 1931 I took supper one evening with Shumpei 
Homma, and asked him how it was that he had devoted his 


The Cross and Ethical Life 177 

life to the care and education of delinquents and ex-con¬ 
victs. He told me that he used to be a jinricksha man in 
the city of Wakamatsu in Aizu prefecture. One day a 
judge of the Appellate Court from Tokyo fell asleep over 
the book he had been reading while riding along in the 
jinricksha, and dropped it in the mud. When Homma 
picked it up and tried to give it back to him, he said it 
was so soiled he did not want it, so Homma asked him for 
it and took it home with him. The book was in English 
and he could not read it. Still he wanted so much to read 
it that he began the study of English, starting from A, B, 
C, and wrestling with a dictionary. With all his might 
and main he studied the book. It was a copy of Lombro- 
so’s Criminology , and in it the opinion was set forth that 
murderers are physiologically different from other men, 
and that in the case of criminals the bones of the skull 
show that there is not the slightest hope that these men 
can ever improve. 

As Homma read the book, he felt that Lombroso could 
never have written in that way if he had ever lived with 
criminals, and he conceived a great desire to try for him¬ 
self to live with criminals in order to prove that this theory 
was wrong. So he made his way to Tokyo and finally re¬ 
tired to a quiet place called Akiyoshidai in Yamaguchi 
prefecture, to give himself to his work for wayward 
youths. 

It may be that from the standpoint of criminology, 
criminals are physiologically different from other men, 
and cannot become better men. But from Christ’s stand¬ 
point, they can be saved. The reason that prayer-meet¬ 
ings have grown musty is because we have ceased to be¬ 
lieve in the power of God which can save. We do not 
sincerely believe in prayer. We only pray for those things 
which we are obliged to pray for. We do not ask the 



178 Meditations on the Cross 

Lord to save the one hundred and sixty thousand criminals 
who crowd our prisons; we do not ask God for the two 
million seven hundred thousand delinquent boys and 
girls that the problem of delinquency may be wiped out. 
We temporize by praying for things which are inconse¬ 
quential. We pray for trivial things, regarding which it 
makes little difference whether we pray or not. Christ 
must enter more deeply into our experience, and we must 
pray with deep conviction. Is it not written that prayer 
is inevitably answered? Christ went through with his 
death upon the Cross courageously because he believed 
that salvation could be made complete. He was convinced 
of the moral efficacy of salvation. We must pray with 
faith, though others may think us superstitious. 

Juji Ishii always had three diaries. He was always 
looking back to the diary of last year and the year before 
that, to see how many of his prayers were being answered 
during the current year, and he kept a diary of thanksgiv¬ 
ing to record his answered prayers. The mats on the floor 
in the corner of the room where he knelt in prayer every 
day were worn down into a little hollow. It was this firm 
belief in prayer that sustained his large orphanage. 

There are some who criticize the Kingdom of God 
Movement, and say scornfully, “ How can a million souls 
be saved? ” But if we were to pray we would be given a 
million souls. God is ready to give Japan these million 
souls but we lack the conscious intention of saving these 
souls, and of taking up our Cross and bearing it, as we 
go along our way. 

We do not read our Bibles in sober earnest. Let us 
become conscious of the fact that we are lacking in faith, 
that we are not bearing the Cross. Let us attach impor¬ 
tance once more to our church prayer-meetings. Let us 


The Cross and Ethical Life 179 

remember and believe that Christ promised that where 
two or three gathered together, he would be there with 
them. With our hearts full of a conscious will to save 
others, let us walk the way with earnest prayer. It is be¬ 
cause we pray that we are able to turn the right cheek 
when we are struck upon the left cheek. 

Inosuke Inouye started out to evangelize the Formosan 
aborigines who had killed his father. His friends were 
ready to help him, but a certain governor-general would 
not give his support to the plan, saying that it was impos¬ 
sible to save such people; the only thing to do was to wipe 
them out. Therefore every year Japan spends four mil¬ 
lion yen for military equipment and men to hold only a 
hundred and thirty thousand aborigines under control. 
This is the fundamental mistake of the policy of suppres¬ 
sion. Why have they not spent the same amount of 
money in sending missionaries to these people, and in 
showing them kindness? 

In Scotland they claim that if workers are added to the 
staff of the Salvation Army, the police department can 
safely decrease its force. I wish that we, too, could work 
with all our might for the poor and the criminal, as though 
we too were Salvation Army workers. We should be 
pouring out our energy, praying as we work, and believing 
in prayer, to save Japan and to plant the ethical teaching 
of the Cross firmly in our country. Let us pray that the 
Holy Spirit may work within the enfeebled churches to 
this end. 

PRAYER 

O God our Father: Forgive us that we have not fully 
realized what agony Christ endured to manifest his love 
towards us. Help us to exert ourselves, as Christ did, for 


180 Meditations on the Cross 

the sake of the people. Teach us to struggle on, like brave 
soldiers who, though covered with blood, keep fighting des¬ 
perately. Grant unto us that we may discover the blood¬ 
stained Cross in the factory, in the highways, in the shops, 
by living lives of loyal service. And this we pray in 
Christ. Amen. 


XVI 


THE CROSS AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 

If any man would come after me, let him deny him¬ 
self, and take up his cross, and follow me. Matthew 
16:24. 


Jesus was a king, a priest, and a prophet. From the 
modern viewpoint there were three aspects to his work, 
the social, the ethical, and the religious. It is not suffi¬ 
cient to meditate upon the Cross in its social and ethical 
aspects. It is only when we consider the religious aspect 
of the Cross that we get down to fundamentals. 

The social movements of our day can understand the 
first two of these aspects of the Cross but they cannot 
appreciate the religious consciousness of the Cross. Men 
of this modern age are particularly apt to hold redemp¬ 
tion in derision. They phrase their doubts in the follow¬ 
ing questions: Can one man make atonement for another? 
Can the efforts of the past become an atonement for the 
present age? How can the effort of an individual effec¬ 
tively atone for the crimes of society? Christ said in the 
twentieth chapter of Matthew, and again in the twenty- 
sixth, that his blood would become a ransom for many, to 
save many from their sins, but there is a tendency in this 
present day to ignore redemption. We must understand 
this tendency. It is a consequence of the fact that our age 
does not regard sin as seriously as did the age of Christ. 

181 


182 Meditations on the Cross 

Religious consciousness develops together with the 
development of conscience. Therefore, when there is no 
keen sense of conscience, such conceptions as the redemp¬ 
tive power of the Cross become impossible. If one 
studies the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews, 
one can understand how the worship of the Judean people 
was a type of that which was to come. The religious con¬ 
sciousness is not yet fully developed but it has come to 
life, and has produced an archetype of the perfected reli¬ 
gious consciousness. At first the Hebrews were satisfied 
with a system of sacrifices and of burnt-offerings. Up to 
the present time, Japan has not produced this solemn 
sacrifice of an offering for sin, or for trespass, offered be¬ 
cause of one’s own sin. There is only a hazy and unde¬ 
veloped conception of this kind, in the recognition of 
the six roots of evil, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, 
the body and the mind; and we find also the feeling of the 
need for their purification. When we examine the New 
Testament, we find the idea of conscience has become 
more fully developed and the conscious will-to-redeem 
glows like a spark of living fire in its pages. The realiza¬ 
tion that one must bear the burden of the sins of men in 
the past, in the present, and in the future becomes a strong 
and powerful conviction. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIONS 
OF ANTIQUITY 

The Greek religion followed the same line of develop¬ 
ment. Why should Greece, which had produced so many 
philosophers, have had to take over the religion of the 
Jews? Gilbert Murray, in his book on The Four Periods 
of Greek Religion , discusses this question. In olden 
times men were so lacking in religious consciousness that 
one could kill another without the slightest concern. In 


The Cross and Religious Life 183 

these modern days we attribute everything to environ¬ 
ment and are equally without a sense of concern. No 
matter what a man may do, he is nonchalant. This is the 
reason that the idea of redemption is incomprehensible 
today. 

Greece also, like our modern age, was absorbed in the 
pursuit of pleasure. First they worshipped Zeus, and then 
they took up as the next step the worship of Apollo. 
They then developed the Delphic Shrine as a place where 
they could have their sins atoned for. From this they 
progressed to the idea that they must be born anew in 
order to be saved from their sins. For this reason the 
worship of Dionysius was introduced, and we find carv¬ 
ings of Zeus carrying the small babe Dionysius in his arms. 
The small babe represents the idea of re-birth and this 
conception can be traced to Persia from which it origi¬ 
nated. Gradually there arose the powerful hope that a 
Savior, that is, a Christ who would be more than human, 
and not merely a man, should be born. The philosophy 
of Socrates and Plato had stirred the religious conscious¬ 
ness of men, and men longed for this Christ to come. The 
Greeks could not be satisfied with Socrates or Plato but 
awaited the Christ. The time was ripe. 

The Egyptian religion developed in much the same 
way. The religion of the descendants of Ham and Shem 
changed with the development of conscience just as reli¬ 
gion had changed with the Greeks. Together with the 
awakening of conscience, men’s hearts began to ache over 
their past sins, and just as the injury of a part will arouse 
pain throughout the whole body, so the conscience began 
to cause distress to the hearts of men because of the sins 
of the human race. The poison had penetrated through¬ 
out the whole body, and the pain was intolerable. This 
longing for a Savior, for re-birth, was the inevitable out- 


184 Meditations on the Cross 

come of the long experience of the human race. The buds 
of Old Testament truth blossomed out into flowers in 
New Testament times. 

THE ACT OF ATONEMENT 

The consciousness of the Cross lay hidden in Christ’s 
heart even from the very beginning of the Galilean period 
of his preaching. Over and over again he told his dis¬ 
ciples that he had come not to be served by men, but to 
serve them; that he had come not to judge men, but to 
save them. But they did not grasp his teaching in the 
least. Because he thought his disciples would not under¬ 
stand his death, he explained to them the work of the 
Holy Spirit. “ My act is in accordance with the Scrip¬ 
tures,” said he. “ It is an act of redemption. Since you 
do not understand now, let yourselves be taught by the 
Holy Spirit, which God will send you at that time.” If 
Jesus had not taken up the Cross, and borne it, his mes¬ 
sage would have had no meaning. 

If the Sermon on the Mount is taken by itself alone, 
Christ’s teaching is not so very different from that of 
the sages of China. The real point of difference between 
the teachings of Christ and these sages is that even at the 
instant when Christ was hanging on the cross, he loved 
his enemies and prayed for them. If one is looking merely 
for ethical precepts, it is not necessary to go to Christ. 
In saving men from all their past sins, in taking all the 
past failures of men, and re-shaping their lives once more 
anew, in giving them the capacity for growth and develop¬ 
ment, Christ entered into the conscious will-to-redeem, 
which fills the heart of God, and in this spirit did his 
priceless work. 

I once knew a man who had killed another, and he was 
in constant torment, saying that the ghost of his victim 


The Cross and Religious Life 185 

kept haunting him. Even though such a man has been 
pronounced “ not guilty ” by the court, and his case thus 
settled by society, still his conscience does not forgive him. 
When one meets with a man like this, there is no other way 
to comfort him but to tell him, “ You can be at peace, for 
Christ died for that sin.” Those who quibble and criticize 
this as superstition will not be satisfied with it, but what 
other salvation is there for such a man? I have seen 
many such men, and for this reason I have come to hold 
a theory of atonement which is not based on theology or 
philosophy. 

Christ did not die upon the Cross because of some 
philosophical or theological theory. He poured out his 
love in response to the groans of the souls of men. When 
one accepts this work of Christ’s with sincerity and simple 
gratitude, and with a meek submissive spirit, one can be 
saved. Where is there in history any other man who has 
thus sincerely grieved over the sins of men, and yearned 
to save them? By having a complete consciousness of 
sin, such a consciousness as God has, he brought salvation 
to perfection. One who does not consciously share this 
redemptive purpose of God cannot imagine one’s responsi¬ 
bility towards God. We are always running away. Our 
consciences give us no rest when we realize that we ought 
to shoulder our responsibility to the uttermost. It is 
Christ and he alone who in all the world of men thought 
the thing through, and then said, “ I will take it all upon 
myself. I will take all the responsibility for all sin upon 
my own shoulders.” 

Here is a heroic conscience! We hear all sorts of 
stories of troubled conscience. Is there any true comfort 
which we can offer other than this, “ The blood of Christ, 
by God’s grace, will atone for all your sins ”? There has 
never been another in all history save Christ who brought 


186 Meditations on the Cross 

to its consummate perfection the love which purposes to 
save men. 


THE CONVERSION OF PAUL AND 
HIS GRASP OF ATONEMENT 

Christ’s disciples did not understand the meaning of the 
atonement at all. It was not until Paul appeared that it 
was understood, and by Paul only with difficulty. Paul 
was at first very much opposed to Christ. He thought it 
disgraceful to worship in such superstitious fashion the 
carpenter Jesus, a political revolutionary, and he opposed 
the new cult in manly fashion, combing every corner of 
the country in order to persecute its believers. But no 
matter how bitterly he fought it, Christ’s teaching con¬ 
tinued to spread. As there were continually those from 
among his own friends who were becoming Christians, he 
gradually became uneasy as to his own actions. And then 
one day, as he was walking along a road, with his heart 
full of uncertainty, a vision of Christ appeared to him, 
and he heard a voice in his ear: “ Saul, Saul, why are you 
persecuting me? ” When Paul asked, “ Who are you? ” 
he was told, “ I am the Christ whom you persecute.” He 
was unable to see for three days and three nights, and 
only when something like scales fell from his eyes was he 
at length able to see again. 

I have had a similar experience. At one time I was un¬ 
able to see for forty-five days, and a scale-like substance 
was removed from my eyes. 

Through this experience Paul realized that the Cross of 
Christ was lifted up for the sake of manifesting the re¬ 
demptive love of God: that this was why Christ died. Sin 
is death. When we become the slaves of sin, we lose our 
strength. We are sold as slaves. Or again our develop¬ 
ment is arrested; we become depraved; we wander from 


The Cross and Religious Life 187 

the way; we miss the mark. Because we have broken the 
law, we must have the sentence “Not guilty: set at lib¬ 
erty,pronounced upon us. By the Cross we are released 
from slavery and given freedom; we return again to life 
and become heirs of God. Having grasped the fact that 
Christ died in order to save us, we realize that we are, each 
one of us, the very chief of sinners, that we are such crim¬ 
inals as to have repaid God’s mercy with enmity. 

In this way Paul enters into the feelings of Christ; he 
tells us that he has clearly experienced Christ’s feelings in 
such passages as Colossians 1:24, and Philippians 1:29. 
It was his purpose to take up for himself the work of 
Christ and to carry it on and to complete in time the suffer¬ 
ings of Christ which were lacking. Not satisfied with his 
own redemption, he began to work for even the mate¬ 
rial salvation of others. Individualistic religion was not 
enough for him, and he became an expert in helping and 
evangelizing the poor. (Galatians 2:10.) In the seventh 
and eighth chapters of II Corinthians we see how he loved 
the poor and that it was his plan to give them aid. But he 
was misunderstood when he tried to do others this kind¬ 
ness, and all sorts of things were said about him. Never¬ 
theless, all his life long he was a self-supporting evan¬ 
gelist. It was when he had gone to Jerusalem to take 
a gift of money for the poor that he was finally taken 
prisoner. 

It is impossible to restrict the gospel of Christ to narrow 
limits. It redeems the sins of the past, restores the pres¬ 
ent, and stimulates development in the future. Moreover, 
this is not merely in the case of the individual, but for 
society as well. We must conceive of it as the liberation 
of the entire human race. The gospel is the message of 
a year of jubilee, of a year of rejoicing. It should mean 
the liberation economically, politically, socially, physio- 


188 Meditations on the Cross 

logically and spiritually of the human race. It must mean 
the true emancipation of the whole of humanity. 

There is a tendency to make the gospel into an innocu¬ 
ous, non-committal sort of thing. But we should make it 
thorough-going and complete salvation to those who are 
in prison, to the poor, to those who are weakened by ill¬ 
ness, to the unemployed. We must not think of Christ’s 
blood as shed for the sake of the individual. We must not 
believe in a salvation for one’s self alone, a salvation of 
selfish advantage, drawing water off to one’s own rice- 
fields. The salvation of the whole human race and the 
whole of society must be our goal. 

PRAYER 

O God our Father: Forgive us that we do not clearly 
understand how to walk in the footsteps of Christ, though 
with our lips we name His name. We take Thy name 
upon our lips in prayer, and do not deeply grasp His teach¬ 
ings. We confess our easy-going indifference. We con¬ 
fess that because our lives are not filled with the conscious 
desire to save others, we have not perceived that Christ, 
the Christ who was worthy to be the Son of God, this 
Christ who saves us, is offering his blood to wipe away the 
stains which come from the gaping wounds of the hearts 
of men. Teach us the many things we should learn from 
the example of Christ. O reveal to us now, with radiant 
clearness, the Christ who passed through the death upon 
the Cross in order to redeem us. When we are sad, when we 
are criticized by others unkindly, when our hearts are 
burdened with greed, teach us to fix our eyes upon the 
God-like figure of Christ, who refused to depend upon 
violence or force, or to return evil for evil. Lead us for¬ 
ward upon our path, we pray, in the name of our Savior. 
Amen. 


xvn 


THE CROSS AND DAILY LIFE 

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples 
that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many 
things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and 
be killed, and the third day be raised up. Matthew 
16:21. 

And he said unto all, If any man would come after 
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, 
and follow me. Luke 9:23. 


It is easy for the Japanese people to understand the con¬ 
ception of God, but it is hard for them to grasp the Cross. 
They may speak glibly of the Cross, but there are few 
who really understand it, and fewer still who practice it. 

It is particularly true of men of this modern age that they 
do not grasp the meaning of the Cross, nor do they live 
the life of the Cross in any thorough-going fashion. The j 
civilization of this present day is in exact opposition to 
the Cross, for it makes self the center, and puts its claims 
first. Because the people of the present day take the 
position that if one’s own class or one’s own nation is 
getting along well, that is quite enough, we find wide¬ 
spread unrest among the oppressed, and the right to live, 
the right to labor, the rights of personality are defended 
with bitterness and desperation. Such movements as 
communism and socialism, which are not founded upon 
189 


190 Meditations on the Cross 

the Cross, take the attitude that it makes no difference 
what happens to others if only a man has work for him¬ 
self. It is of no importance what happens to the rich — 
let him be out of work, let the landowner be out of employ¬ 
ment; who cares? Let the proletarians work to establish 
the position of their own class, no matter what happens to 
the landlords! The fate of those who live on land rents 
is quite unimportant! Of course, the Cross is unintelli¬ 
gible to such people. 

There are at least five points of significance in the 
Cross. In the first place, the Cross teaches us that what¬ 
ever suffering may come is sent by God. If we feel that 
suffering comes through other men, it becomes intolerable; 
but we can accept it gladly if it is from God. Our modern 
thought does not agree with this at all. There is a general 
feeling that it is ridiculous to think of God as sending 
suffering. It has no meaning, it is suffering, and nothing 
more; as such it is to be avoided. Let us spend each day 
as it comes in pleasure and enjoyment of life. 

We have the habit in Japan of running away from 
suffering. We have degenerated since the days of Hojo 
when the Zen sect taught self-discipline and an austere 
mode of life. When some great catastrophe, like the 
earthquake, happens, our lack of vigor and spirit comes 
"to light. I have been told that there are a million or more 
Koreans who have emigrated to northeastern Manchuria 
because they have been dispossessed of their country. 
They are enduring the trials of the cold climate with cour¬ 
age; although the summer is short, still they manage to 
cultivate many acres of land, and even to grow some rice. 
But the Japanese are always looking for an easy mode of 
life, and they have lost the desire to persevere in endur¬ 
ing hardships. They are attempting to flee from the 
Cross. (Philippians 3:18.) 


The Cross and Daily Life 19 i 

If you complain that Japan is limited in extent, 
there is the northern island of the Hokkaido with over one 
million acres of uncultivated land; there is still plenty 
of room for people to immigrate there. The Hokkaido 
can take care of five times the population of the main 
island. There is Southern Saghalin (Karafuto) with its 
three hundred thousand acres of land, if one has the spirit 
to go as a colonist, to live simply and to work hard. The 
reason that the Japanese do not go in and occupy such 
lands is because they lack the willingness to endure priva¬ 
tions, the spirit of bearing a cross. We must lay more 
stress upon this spirit. 

When the disciples of Christ begged him to become 
their king, he deliberately chose instead the suffering of 
the Cross. In the thirteenth century during the Hojo 
period of Japanese history, there was a man called Eizai 
who taught Japan this way of suffering. He was a priest 
in the temple of Fudasan, belonging to the Zen sect, and 
he was a man of simple sincerity of spirit and vigor of 
character. It was this same spirit of simple frugality 
which occasioned many of the stories told of the heroes of 
that period, of Matsushita Zeni, and of Fujitsuna Aoto, 
who dragged the river to recover a copper coin — though 
it cost him more than the value of the coin — in order 
to restore it to circulation. It is told of Aoto that he took 
only the simplest fare, and the only relish he would take 
with his wine was yake-miso, a sort of toasted bean cake. 
Many other tales are told of him, which reveal a simple 
frugality of life almost religious in its atmosphere. 

We moderns lack this atmosphere. The Hojo family 
had more of this tone than the Ashikaga or Tokugawa 
families, who succeeded them. Take, for example, Toki- 
yori Hojo, who when he was still a young man retired to 
the seclusion of a small temple, called Saimyoji, north of 


192 Meditations on the Cross 

Yokohama, and built himself a hut and took up the simple 
and strictly ordered life of the Zen sect. In order to 
discipline himself and to develop courage, he would rise 
early in the morning for meditation; he lived on the 
simplest of food, taking only a bowl of bean soup with 
his rice; and he wore the gloomy black robes of the priests. 
Tokiyori was succeeded by Tokimasa, and it was during 
the latter’s rule that Kublai Khan invaded Japan. It is 
truly remarkable that Japan was able to resist this inva¬ 
sion, and in my opinion it is due to the influence of the 
Zen sect, with its system of self-discipline and its empha¬ 
sis on a simple, austere mode of life. 

According to Mrs. E. A. Gordon, who visited Japan, 
the Daruma, or famous Buddhist saint of Japan, was a 
foreigner.* Mrs. Gordon felt that there was so much of 
the element of the early Christian teaching in the train¬ 
ing and discipline of the Zen sect that she claimed that 
Daruma must have been either St. Thomas, the disciple 
of Christ, or one of his followers. The virility of the 
Kamakura period of Japanese history was due to the 
spiritual discipline practised at that time. The reason 
that the disciples of Christ conquered Europe was because 
they had the will to trample suffering under their feet. 
Unless the Japanese people have more of this spirit, Japan 
cannot make progress. Instead of trying to imitate the 
West, and doing it badly, it would be much better for us 
to study and understand clearly the way of Christ, whose 
origin was in Asia. 

We who are followers of Christ must guard his secret. 
We must have the secret skill of turning every pain into 

* Daruma, the Buddhist sainf of Japan, is known to Western students 
of Buddhism by his Indian name of Bodidharma. He is ordinarily sup¬ 
posed to have been an Indian Buddhist sage who migrated to China as a 
Buddhist missionary. 


The Cross and Daily Life 193 

joy. The only thing which brought the country through the 
crisis of the Ho jo period was spiritual force. In our mod¬ 
ern times, however, the individualistic religion of the Zen 
sect is inadequate. Many of the characteristic teachings 
of the Zen sect are to be found in Christianity, as well, 
but there must be group activity, too. 

THE CONQUEST OF SORROW 

In the second place, the Cross is a way of conquering 
sorrow. Not suffering alone but sorrow also is the lot of 
man. Suffering and sorrow may seem to be closely re¬ 
lated, but there is a slight difference between them. 
Though a man may have a secure livelihood, he may be 
sad. Though he may have a lovely home and a good wife, 
and everything he needs, still that man may be sad. Some 
men are saddened by their lack of education; others are 
dissatisfied with life. Some meet with business failure. 
Shaka was born in a king’s palace but he grieved over his 
environment which to others seemed so fortunate. Suffer¬ 
ing is negative and sorrow is positive. The Cross is the 
way of conquest over sorrow. When one loses a child, 
one may not suffer in his own body, but as a parent 
he experiences sorrow. Although he tries to give up 
his child and resign himself to his loss, yet he cannot 

do it. Madame S- was a countess, whose family 

belonged to the Nichiren sect. When she was in deep 
distress because of the loss of her child, she came to know 
the Way of Christ, which conquers sorrow. She suddenly 
awakened to the new truth and accepted Christian teach¬ 
ing. The teachings of Christianity make it possible to 
endure sorrow with a heart at peace. 

When Jesus was being led away to the cross, a crowd 
of women followed him weeping. The road along which 
Christ was taken is called the Via Dolorosa today and 



194 Meditations on the Cross 

many stories have gathered around it. Christ told the 
weeping women to mourn rather over the day of destruc¬ 
tion which would come to them. (Luke 23:27-31.) I 
am much impressed by the way in which Christ forgot 
his own suffering and thought only of the suffering of 
others. We must discover the secret of this composure 
which can forget its own sufferings and suffer for others. 
Although the Japanese people should be strong in meeting 
suffering, still there are few who meet its blows with self- 
possession. 

Tom Sawyer, the hero of Mark Twain’s famous novel, 
was a mischievous youngster, but for all his mischief, 
he was not a bad boy. The story is laid in the years when 
the basin of the Mississippi River was being reclaimed, 
and this ragged little rascal wanders about from one place 
to another, meeting with all sorts of adventures. He is 
without a friend, but he has learned to endure the sorrow 
of loneliness with composure. He is an ultra-modern boy. 
In Japan if a boy is mischievous, he is sure to be bad, but 
we still find this spirit of boyish innocent mischief in 
America today. The Americans are disorderly; I was 
amazed to see students in a university putting their feet 
up on their desks while listening to a lecture. But this 
spirit of nonchalance has its value, for it enables one to 
pass through suffering triumphantly. It seems to me 
that these people who have subjugated the immense con¬ 
tinent of America are the world’s prize lovers of fun. The 
Japanese are too fond of formality and ceremony and are 
too much inclined to put on airs of elegance. We must go 
back to the real spirit of the tea-ceremony, and find joy 
in even a sip of tea. I wish we might grasp and hold fast 
the spirit which is able to surmount every sorrow. 

Livingstone had this spirit; he met suffering trium¬ 
phantly. He trampled it under foot. Livingstone was not 


The Cross and Daily Life 195 

clever at preaching sermons. He chose the most difficult 
place in the world for his work, darkest Africa. He en¬ 
dured all sorts of suffering during the thirty years of his 
work; his friends said he was insane; he was separated by 
death from the wife he loved, but he kept on, pressing 
forward all the time. He was truly an incarnation of the 
spirit of Christ. He was thoroughly versed in geology, 
zoology, botany, and natural science and yet, with all 
his learning, he was so tender-hearted that he even loved 
the slaves. I like his virility, and his unflinching per¬ 
sistence during these thirty years. Young men in these 
modern times do not have the spirit even to bore a hole 
with an awl. I wish we might stir one another up to under¬ 
take the most difficult or disagreeable tasks; though 
others may dislike and avoid them, let us undertake them 
joyfully. 

THE CONQUEST OF DEATH 

The third significance of the Cross is the conquest of 
death. There are two meanings in death; the death of 
the body, physical death, and the death of the self. When 
we speak of death, we immediately think of physical 
death. Everyone is averse to death, but Christ sought 
out death and went his way to the Cross. When Jesus 
was on his second journey he said, “ I will die in a short 
time,” showing that he had included death in the pro¬ 
gram of his life. He also said that he would come to life 
again. When one can be as thorough-going as this, the 
sorrow in death evaporates. When we feel as though we 
would like to live forever, death becomes a sorrow, but 
when we put it in our program right from the start, it 
becomes a joy. Death becomes part of one’s mission, 
one’s allotted task. 

Why did God create death? Death has first the mean- 


196 Meditations on the Cross 

ing of elimination, and second, it provides a way that the 
self may prolong its existence and continue to grow. We 
look forward to death as the immigrants to Brazil look 
forward to life in the new country. In order that we 
might find in death the significance of a migration, Christ 
said that in his Father’s house there were many dwelling 
places. Again he spoke of death as entrusting his soul 
to God. When we meditate on this meaning of death, we 
are not saddened by the fact of it. 

THE CONQUEST OF SELF 

The second meaning of death is the death of the self. 
We may understand the meaning of physical death very 
clearly but the death of self is much more difficult to grasp. 
We find these words, “ having slain the enmity,” in the 
sixteenth verse of the second chapter of Ephesians. Be¬ 
sides our physical selves we have certain instincts. Al¬ 
though from the standpoint of our conscious selves we 
desire to do those things which are good, yet we are also 
inclined to follow our instincts blindly, and the self is 
divided into two selves. One self wants to do the good, 
the other self, the self of instinct, which clings to the phys¬ 
ical, longs to do evil. When we study Christ’s prayer in 
Gethsemane, we find him abandoning himself utterly to 
God until his will is conformed exactly to the will of God. 
We find the two selves struggling in conflict in Paul, but 
in Christ the self of instinct had been put to death, and 
the self which consciously willed to suffer had conquered. 
The willingness to suffer shines out bright and clear. The 
prayer of Gethsemane reveals that although Christ felt 
an instinctive desire to live, still he would not selfishly ask 
for life. Christ prayed this prayer three times, and in the 
end he joyfully and resolutely cast aside the instinctive 
self, for the self of instinct has missed its way. It carries 


The Cross and Daily Life 197 

a load of sin, of lust, of dishonesty, of falsehood, of physi¬ 
cal heredity and social heredity, which from God’s view¬ 
point is enmity to him. All this Christ resolutely flung 
aside. This is the Cross. 

God enters into our heart when we pray this prayer, and 
destroys all that is unsightly in our hearts, all the enmity, 
all the instincts; and death truly takes place, the death 
which strips off and throws aside the self, refusing to make 
request for any selfish advantage. Then for the first time 
the soul is born again into the life where one’s will is one 
with God’s will. This is the meaning of baptism. The old 
instincts fade away and new instincts come into play, in¬ 
stincts which are beautiful because they conform to the 
thoughts and feelings of God. 

THE CONQUEST OF SIN 

The fifth significance of the Cross is the forgiveness of 
sin. Up to this point we have been looking at the cross 
from the standpoint of mankind, but here we are looking 
at it from God’s standpoint. Christ completed the burial 
of his self and then entered into the realm of God. Man¬ 
kind, let us say, can progress to a certain point. In 
order that man may reach yet higher to another stage, it 
is necessary that God should say, “ I will forgive every¬ 
thing which has gone before.” This willingness on God’s 
part is revealed in the Cross. Those who have come to 
Christ are saved by virtue of Christ’s deeds and conquer 
death — the self, sorrow, suffering, all — in him. This is 
the forgiveness of sins. While it is a wonderful thing to 
feel that one is pardoned if one believes in Christ, it is not 
enough only to be saved oneself. It is not enough to re¬ 
peat some such prayer as “ Namu, Amida Butsu! ” (Save 
us, O Buddha!) 

Christianity is to believe in the Cross of Christ, and 


198 Meditations on the Cross 

then suffering and sorrow, death, and even selfishness, are 
conquered. The race has been saved through this revela¬ 
tion of God-like love. Christ hung on the Cross, moreover, 
because as he said the sin of the human race was an offense 
to God. In this sense Christ’s Cross is a Cross of victory. 
It is a Cross which causes man in death to be resurrected 
to God. The Cross is the crystallization of the love of 
God. If a character such as Christ’s appears, man’s fail¬ 
ures can be forgiven. Looking at the Cross we can discern 
the great love of God to man. Though we dwell in prison, 
in some lonely colony of emigrants, or in a world of sor¬ 
row through being misunderstood, we can trample under 
foot every difficulty, for we live in the conviction that God 
forgives. This is the acme of religion. This is the secret 
of Christianity. 


PRAYER 

O God of Heaven and Earth: We thank Thee that nine¬ 
teen hundred years ago Thou didst reveal the perfect 
figure for mankind in the person of a carpenter. Through 
his courage, through his pity, his love of his fellowmen 
and his victory over suffering, sorrow, selfishness and sin, 
and death, Thou didst manifest to us the perfect man. 
Teach us that our own pathways of life must lead on into 
the Way of Christ who hung upon a Cross. Wavering, 
unwilling to make the choice, we hesitate. We humbly 
confess it. Cause the spirit of Christ to dwell in us, that 
we may kill selfishness, and be children of God who love 
our fellowmen. This we pray in the name of Christ. 
Amen. 


xvm 


THE CROSS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 

These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever 
he goeth, These were purchased from among men, 
to be the first-fruits unto God and unto the Lamb. 
Revelations 14:4. 

Although the Roman empire had been greatly influ¬ 
enced by the movement initiated by Jesus Christ, when it 
was invaded by the Huns, a barbarian race which swept 
down from western China, it was not able to withstand the 
invasion. When Christian love proved unable to conquer 
the spears of the barbarians, the Emperor Justinian 
worked out a system of laws which accepted Christian 
principles only in part and tried to blend force and love. 
Modern law is based upon this law of Justinian. In Eng¬ 
land, for instance, love is adopted as the law of the home, 
to some extent as the law of the country, but even in this 
peace-loving country, barbarian practices are still the rule 
in foreign relations. 

Why is it that Europe, where Christianity is familiar, 
still engages in war? It is because Europe is only half- 
Christian. Kenneth Saunders once said: “ There is more 
than one kind of Englishman; Englishmen are both pirates 
and angels.” Ever since the time of Justinian, we find 
these two elements, love and force, in the laws and cus¬ 
toms of every country which has developed a system of 
government. The nations of the world present a double 
face; from one view they are angels, from the other, devils. 
The nations of our present time are Justinian. Not one of 
199 


200 


Meditations on the Cross 

them is out-and-out Christian. Germany, England and 
America are “ Christian ” countries, but one side of the 
picture of their world is dreadful. In Japan we too have 
a similar world of terrible inconsistencies. 

Individually we are also facing in the two directions. 
The instincts are blind. They want to go to the night 
club, to drink and to “ see life.” The conscious self wants 
to know God, to walk in the path of righteousness. Man 
has these two tendencies in his nature. Paul states this 
clearly. He calls the self which longs to become like God 
the “ new ” man and the instinctive self the “ old ” man. 

Within us there is the instinctive self and also the con¬ 
scious one. Caught between these two, we are in trouble 
indeed. Just as the Roman Empire was distressed by the 
conflict between these two, we of today are also suffering, 
and have made little progress beyond that day. True cul¬ 
ture makes consciousness its foundation, and rejects in¬ 
stinctive, reckless, and blind thinking. That is why I 
challenge our age to awaken to full consciousness. With 
the conscious mind man has been wanting to follow God 
and Christ, but has not been able to do so because of his 
instincts. In the West these two tendencies have been 
apparent. 

In the midst of that confusion a young man emerged in 
Assisi of Italy. He was a knight, handsome, gifted, skilful 
in making friends, given to sport and to sowing his wild 
oats. Until eighteen he was a prodigal son, but then he 
made a hard and fast resolution never again to surrender 
to blind instinct, and began a valiant endeavor to become 
a child of God. His name was Francis. 

Endeavoring to enter into the Christ-life, he meditated 
on the Cross as the deepest and highest symbol of love. 
And they say that the marks of the Cross appeared upon 
his own breast. This is a famous story. After that Italy 


201 


The Cross and Social Movements 

could not free itself from his influence. Wherever I went 
in Italy, the Roman Catholic churches did not have pulpits 
to preach in, but were places for worship. On their altars 
is the Cross, and behind it a picture, and usually one of 
Francis. In the cathedral of Milan, for instance, a mag¬ 
nificent marble temple big enough to hold a congregation 
of ten thousand, is a picture of him by Giotto. It is said 
that no other person has ever entered so thoroughly into 
the life of love which Christ lived, as St. Francis. Bud¬ 
dhism in Japan has been influenced by him. Nishida 
Tenko is a person who has tried to live a life like that of 
Francis. And among the Buddhists, Shinran Shonin, Ryo- 
kan, and others have lived lives similar to his. 

What was it which transformed this wayward youth, 
who found the days too short to satisfy his craving for 
pleasure and for power, into a lover of little birds, a lover 
of nature, a lover of humanity? This noble personality 
was entirely the work of the Cross. We can discover the 
pure grace of God in a conversion as thoroughgoing as 
this one. We of this modern age ought to experience this 
sort of conversion. 

We can study the Cross from many different aspects. 
We can consider the Cross as a social principle, for there 
must be a spirit of sacrifice if society is to advance. Again 
we may consider the Cross from the educational view¬ 
point, or from the standpoint of the emotions. The en¬ 
thusiasm which the Cross inspires is a marvelous thing. 
When one meditates on the Cross, centering one’s atten¬ 
tion on it, what emotion sweeps through our souls! It is 
the Cross which gives us strength to endure sorrow and 
suffering! It is the Cross which urges us on and chal¬ 
lenges us to moral adventure! We are lost in adoration 
when we contemplate the scheme of life which is revealed 
in the Cross. 


202 


Meditations on the Cross 


THE PLAN OF LOVE 

Let us study the Cross as the principle of love. Man 
is part devil and part angel; he is capable of conscious 
choice, and at the same time he is a creature of blind in¬ 
stinct. I would like to let our minds dwell on the fact that, 
as children of God, we are able to grasp the fundamental 
meaning of the Cross for us, as his children. There is 
only one foundation principle; that is, love. 

We think of love as like a longing for one’s loved one, 
and indeed, the differentiation of sex takes its origin in this 
deep foundation principle of the universe. The universe 
is divided into male and female in order that the world 
may go on. The reason that amoebae do not evolve into 
something higher is because they reproduce by fission; 
new amoebae split off from the parent amoeba. But if you 
wish progress, there must be differentiation of sex. There 
had to be this marvelous arrangement of male and female 
in order to provide a starting point for the awe-inspiring 
process of evolution. God planned that his universe 
should progress through the human race, and in that plan 
love has its part. 

In Christianity, therefore, the problem of sex is met in 
a reverent attitude because it arises out of the fundamental 
law of evolution, which is in turn a fundamental principle 
of the universe. Here we are in sympathetic accord with 
Jesus Christ, who said that a man would leave his father 
and mother and cleave to his wife and they would become 
one. Christianity reverences marriage. It respects mar¬ 
riage and holds the highest ideals for it. Formerly Chris¬ 
tianity was disliked because of its insistence on a high 
standard of morality, but it is generally recognized today 
that this principle of sex morality is a fundamental prin¬ 
ciple of development and progress. If we have a good 


The Cross and Social Movements 203 

heritage we are capable of progress to the point of becom¬ 
ing saints; yet because we take our ease before we reach 
the goal, we lose strength and power and retrogress. This 
is sin. We are inclined to think of sin as the infraction of 
some moral law, such as stealing, but it is sin for us, who 
should become the children of God, to be caught in a giddy 
whirl and cease to progress. 

When, over and above that, our heredity is tainted by 
alcoholism, or with syphilis, the problem becomes even 
more complicated. For this reason there is nothing so 
sacred as the relations between the sexes. We should keep 
them as pure as though we were in God’s presence. We 
should abandon all licentiousness. We must not treat sex 
as though it were half a joke. Hidden within these mys¬ 
teries is God’s plan. It is not merely human love; 
it is God’s love. We must become fully aware of this. 
God created the universe in such a way that it might 
progress through this love of God revealed to the human 
race. 

That love keeps spreading out to society. It becomes 
sex-love, friendship, patriotism, and at last the love of the 
whole of society. All this is God’s design. If love be¬ 
tween the sexes sets forward the evolution of the universe, 
so does the love of society as a whole. All must put love 
into practice, working together with good will, each mak¬ 
ing his particular contribution towards the reorganization 
of society. Whether it be bookkeeping or an intellectual 
contribution, we must make our love thoroughgoing. We 
must learn to practice Christian love in our economic sys¬ 
tems, in the educational world, in social matters, in every 
phase of life. 

It is easy to understand this when we look at the educa¬ 
tional world. No one individual can build up a university. 
One person studies optics, and produces a magnifying- 


204 Meditations on the Cross 

glass. Another makes a study of atoms through that mag¬ 
nifying-glass. Another discovers some new truth about 
the cells of the brain, and thus there is advance. If there 
is selfishness, there is no advance. If we want freedom 
we must have love as the foundation principle. 

If only we could learn simply to love one another, it 
would be the solution of our problems, but we are apt to 
seek rather our own selfish pleasure or advantage. We 
treat life lightly, as though it were play, and forget that 
love is ever welling up from the foundations of the uni¬ 
verse, for love is the fundamental principle of the universe. 
When we grasp this principle, we realize that we must hold 
true to the course and strive to advance, be it ever so little, 
towards our goal. Christ’s disciple, John, said, “ We love, 
because God loves us.” (I John 4:19.) When we under¬ 
stand this love, we know how to love humanity. 

When we meet someone to whom we are naturally at¬ 
tracted we say “ I like so-and-so,” and we think that we 
love him because of our own will-power, or because of our 
nature, but we must remember that the love which per¬ 
meates the universe is making us love that person. It is 
God who makes us love in that way. Love is narrow at 
first, but it tends to widen and grow more and more inclu¬ 
sive until it becomes the love of all the universe. The 
more the world progresses, the wider our conceptions be¬ 
come. A man who has been concerned merely with his 
own family now begins to think in terms of his village. 
He becomes willing to serve as a member of the village or 
city council. Next he becomes interested in the problems 
of the prefecture, and is interested in becoming a member 
of the Prefectural Council; and then because he has be¬ 
come concerned for his country as a whole, he runs for 
election to the Lower House of the Diet. 

Suppose someone has done us a wrong. We are filled 


The Cross and Social Movements 205 

with a desire for revenge and all feeling that that man is 
human fades out of our thought. We are simply con¬ 
cerned as to how we can take our revenge; we may even 
plan to meet and kill our enemy. But when we look at 
that man as God looks at him, that is, from the stand¬ 
point of the universe as a whole, it is undeniable that he, 
though he may be my enemy, was born for some purpose 
and is useful in some way. Thus, by trying to get God’s 
viewpoint, one may even come to love his enemy and to 
be filled with an eager desire to love those who hate and 
harass him. 

Our love widens until it includes not only all humanity 
but all created things. When one examines a little mouse, 
he discovers that it is marvelously made, and when he 
stops to think that it is designed by God, love for the little 
creature wells up in his heart. That which is useless from 
the standpoint of a part may be quite essential from the 
standpoint of the whole. 

This is the fundamental principle of love, and unless 
one enters into the conscious realization of the whole — 
that is, a conscious sharing of the viewpoint of God — it 
is impossible to understand it. If you examine the fingers 
of the hand each one by itself, they are not comely, but 
when the five fingers are all there, they are both shapely 
and useful. In the heart of the God of the universe, each 
child of his is as necessary to him as the fingers are to the 
hand. It is imperative to save each one, whether it be a 
little child, or a woman of ill-fame. In the marvelous 
design of the universe, not even a sparrow can fall to the 
earth meaninglessly. 

THE RESTORATIVE POWER OF THE BLOOD 

Those who have thought deeply on this love are the 
most useful to society and serve society as blood serves 


2 °6 Meditations on the Cross 

the human body. The blood is constantly circulating in 
the human body; if there is any injury anywhere, the 
blood repairs the damage. We call this regenerative 
process anagenesis, but that means merely that we possess 
powers of repair and renewal as well as powers of growth. 
This is the duty of the blood. If there are no individuals 
who undertake the work of the blood, the universe does 
not move forward. 

Love has this restorative power; it does the work of the 
blood. This work of the blood is called in Christian teach¬ 
ing, the Cross. This is the blood of the Cross. There is 
no growth without the blood, nor is there any possibility of 
repairing the body, but through the work of the blood even 
contagious diseases can be cured, and the body which has 
wasted away can put on weight. In the same way, those 
who have faults or defects may be restored through love. 

Well then, if the blood has this function in the body, 
what is the work of those who represent the blood in so¬ 
ciety? It is their function to offer their lives as a sacrifice 
in order to serve others. Suppose that the oldest brother 
in the home is a profligate. If a younger sister takes care 
of her brother s children, and quietly and unobtrusively 
devotes herself to them, his faults are atoned for. For¬ 
giveness becomes possible. A love that considers only its 
own advantage has no value to society. 

Take for instance a labor union which makes an unsuc¬ 
cessful attempt to win some advantage from capitalism. 
When they are questioned by the police, the men disclaim 
all knowledge of the affair. But if the members of the 
union would hold together, no matter if they were de¬ 
feated, and regardless of what sort of ill-treatment they 
received, or how cruelly they were punished, they would 
be fulfilling the work of the blood. Unless there is the 
conscious acceptance of the work of the blood, unless there 


The Cross and Social Movements 207 

is a conscious willingness to atone for the faults of others, 
there is no true union. 

The blood circulates silently through the body. The 
people of this modern age are not willing to become 
the blood. There are many who want to serve society as 
the face serves the body. People today all want to become 
Prime Ministers. They all want to become “ heads ” of 
this or that. But if there is no one who has the desire to 
serve by healing the defects of others, in quiet, humble 
ways, even a home will fall apart. Sometimes when a man 
has been sent to prison, his wife will say she wants a di¬ 
vorce; she feels so disappointed in her hopes that she no 
longer wants to be his wife. She is usually convinced that 
he is at fault, and refuses to consider herself at all to 
blame. When the faults of others are disclosed openly, 
we disclaim all responsibility. 

In South China it is the custom to run away from a 
dying person. It is said that this custom has arisen from 
the fact that it has often happened that a man would be 
given poison by another, who would wait near by until his 
victim was at the point of death. As soon as the man was 
dead, the murderer would search under the pillow of the 
dead man for his valuables. Therefore it has become the 
custom to flee from a dying person to avoid suspicion. 
But we must do exactly the opposite. We must strive to 
love the faults of men. We must try to atone for the de¬ 
fects of criminals, even to the point of shedding our blood 
for them. If a man’s wife is given to shop-lifting, he must 
try to forgive her. St. Augustine said that even if a man’s 
wife had committed adultery still he ought to forgive her. 

We are utterly opposed to avarice. We are carrying on 
labor movements and village movements on behalf of the 
proletariat and the tenant farmers, but the capitalists are 
also human beings, and therefore, if they are making mis- 


208 Meditations on the Cross 

takes, we must forgive them and do all we can to atone 
for their mistakes. Society will not grow unless we take 
this attitude. On the other hand, radical groups often 
threaten to overthrow the capitalists, to “ do them up.” 
If these men shared the feeling of God towards these 
capitalists, they would be eager to save them, and they 
would be convinced that if they did not save them, it 
would be an inexcusable offense towards God. 

If one man commits a sin, the God of heaven and earth 
is grieved and that is why we must strive to lead such a 
one to a change of heart. This was Christ’s attitude. We 
are opposed to capitalism and to the crimes and sins of the 
capitalist regime, but we must try to redeem its defects. 
It does not do to take an attitude of pure opposition, or to 
feel that we do not want capitalists in our churches. We 
should not censure them for having committed sin, but 
just because they have fallen into sin, we must save them. 
This is the fundamental principle which should be the 
starting point for our activities. 

What if the blood were to take part in a class war? If 
the blood were to say, “ I don’t want to go to that detest¬ 
able old head. I’ll go only to the feet,” and thus start a 
class war, the body would die. The blood must go any¬ 
where, everywhere, without distinction. So with love. 
Unless it penetrates to every part of society, the nation 
cannot endure. 

We stand absolutely for the right of every man to live, 
to labor, and the right to character. I stand for the uni¬ 
versal right to livelihood, but if we who are taking the 
part of the blood by striving for the reconstruction of so¬ 
ciety were to be asked to participate in a strike here in 
Japan, I would be opposed to such a movement* The 

* Dr. Kagawa thinks that strikes are necessary in the very early stages 
of the development of the labor movement, but that they should be 


The Cross and Social Movements 209 

people must become conscious of the blood and its re¬ 
demptive work. We have a share in this sacrificial service 
to society. With the consciousness in our hearts that we 
are doing the work of the blood, we must willingly forgive 
crime, even the crimes of those who oppress us. 

THE MEANING OF BLOOD 

It was Christ’s purpose to fulfil the function of the 
blood by love. That is the meaning of the Cross. The 
verse, “ The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,” 
means just this. We must carry on the purifying work of 
the blood by going into the streets where the rogues live, 
and living with them; we must mingle with the prostitute 
women; we must make friends of the criminals, restoring 
and healing as the blood does, until crime disappears. 
When our blood becomes impure, the blood of Christ will 
cleanse it from impurity. There is in God a power which 
is eternally purifying, repairing defects, and cleansing 
once more that which has become corrupt. We must cher¬ 
ish the example of the Christ of the Cross, who lived this 
life of the blood. 


minimized after it is thoroughly organized. When the cooperative move¬ 
ment is strong, the labor union should be a producers’ cooperative in that 
it has the service attitude toward other social groups rather than a con¬ 
troversial one. Especially does Dr. Kagawa deprecate the numerous 
strikes now being fomented both in Japan and the United States by com¬ 
munist agitators. In the beginning of his work with the labor movement 
in Japan he did support some strikes, but by 1921 he felt the movement 
had progressed far enough to do without striking. One of his associates, 
however, a man somewhat under the influence of communism, started the 
great general strike of Kobe and Osaka in that summer. Kagawa went 
into it to act as adviser and help prevent violence. He was imprisoned, 
along with a hundred other strike-leaders, at its close. It was at that 
time that he finished the novel, Listening to the Walls. After his release 
he informed the labor leaders that he would devote his time from then 
on for a while to organizing the farmers, and advised them, the laborers, 
not to strike any more. — H. T. 



210 


Meditations on the Cross 

For this principle did not take its origin from men; its 
source is in God. Faith in the Cross, faith in the blood, 
means that one asks for forgiveness because one believes 
in the love of God. One has faith in love, in God’s love. 
If there is a real intention to receive the forgiveness of sin 
through love, to enter the experience of being born again, 
and to begin a new life, one is forgiven because of Christ’s 
blood, no matter what sins or crime he may have com¬ 
mitted. 

The reality of love is the blood. Love must live again. 
It must wait till it lives again. This is faith. Those who 
have been saved through the blood of the Cross must from 
now on live the life of the blood; they must live the life of 
the Cross. 


PRAYER 

O God our Father: We thank Thee that through the 
blood of the Cross Thou dost cleanse our sins, forgive our 
shortcomings, and purify us. Even when we are in revolt 
against Thee, Thou dost have compassion on us. Even 
when we blindly grovel in sin, Thou dost have pity upon 
us. We praise Thy love which melts our hearts, hardened 
into rock by evil heredity and crime, and purifies and re¬ 
vitalizes them once more. 

We confess the sins of our modern age. The world 
today has gone deep into partnership with crime; we are 
repeating the wickedness of the days of Rome. O purify 
us that we may enter more fully into the consciousness of 
the blood of the Cross and forgive the sins of men for the 
sake of the new age that is to come. Inspire us to strive to 
build a road of righteousness that man may walk thereon. 
Create us anew into men and women worthy of having re¬ 
ceived the redemption of the blood of the Cross and lead 
us so that we also may be able to live lives of loving serv- 


The Cross and Social Movements 21 i 

ice, lives actuated by the principle of the blood. We bless 
Thee for granting us redemption through the blood in this 
depraved age in which we live. The joy of redemption is 
more precious to us than precious jewels. Make us be¬ 
lieve Thy mercy and cause us to stand on our feet, and 
bestir ourselves in cleansing our homes, and our nation. 
Give us the strength to purify our country, and our society. 
Cleanse our industries, purify us from the spirit of selfishly 
seeking the interests of our own class, and help us to enter 
into the feelings of the heart of God. Grant that we may 
hold fast, we beseech Thee, in unswerving determination 
to our resolution to follow the way of the Cross. We pray 
this through the blood. Amen. 





















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111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 
















































































































